This letter is for you, the ones who sit at this small round table with me. It’s not for the big stage. It’s for the quiet conversations, the shared burdens, the kind of talk that happens after the main meeting is over and only a few remain.

When I first started this Substack, it was a simple, reluctant obedience. The Fath…

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I used to think of holding patterns as empty seasons. Times when my life was on pause, and Yahuah’s real work was happening somewhere else. I’d look at the stillness and assume I was spiritually benched. But I was wrong. Yahuah is everywhere, knows everything, and holds all power. If I believe that, then there is no such thing as a spiritually empty moment. The challenge wasn’t His absence. It was my attention.

I recently experienced this blindness in a new way. A close friend began sending me links to social media clips, content far outside his usual interests. A curiosity was sparking in him. Before my Kairos moment, I would have seen these texts as a nuisance and muted the thread. More recently, I might have dismissed them as distractions from my own quiet time with God. I would have missed the brother, an image-bearer of the Creator, and completely failed to realize the Holy Spirit was sending me an assignment for that very moment.

This is the myth of the holding pattern. We interpret stillness as inactivity. We mistake a lack of dramatic, personal forward motion for God’s disengagement. But scripture reveals a different reality. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed,” (Matthew 13:31, ESV). It starts invisibly small. Our mistake is waiting for the fully grown tree to appear instantly, while dismissing the daily planting as “nothing happening.”

What looks like God’s waiting room is actually His workshop. And in that workshop, He is not mass-producing disciples on an assembly line. He hand-crafts each one. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,” (Jeremiah 1:5, ESV). He knows the unique texture of your doubt, the specific shape of your pride. So why would He use a one-size-fits-all manual? My path to surrender involved silent caregiving. Yours might involve public ministry. The destination of trust is identical, but the journeys are as unique as our fingerprints. This is the Master Artist’s custom curriculum.

My friend’s curious texts were part of his curriculum, a gentle nudge from the Spirit. And my response or lack thereof was part of mine. God was inviting me to participate in His work in another life, not from a place of busy striving, but from a posture of attentive readiness. He was showing me that my “holding pattern” was not a pause in His activity, but a repositioning of my awareness.

This leads to the most profound truth: God prefers to work through the collective body. He is not a human benefactor commissioning five separate paintings. He is the Master Artist commissioning one masterpiece, inviting five different painters to collaborate on the same canvas, one story…His story. “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ,” (1 Corinthians 12:12, ESV).

My old view was selfish. I wanted God’s work to be clean, solitary, and obvious a bag of cash found on a walk. But that desire is a quiet rebellion against interdependence. It’s a wish to be an entire body unto myself. God’s design is communal. His “manifold wisdom” (Ephesians 3:10, ESV), polupoikilos in Greek, meaning variegated, multi-colored, is displayed in a tapestry, not a single thread.

When my friend sends a link, he is applying a brushstroke. When I respond thoughtfully with an article that speaks to his curiosity, I am applying another. We are working on the same section of the canvas, guided by the same Spirit, though we may not fully see the final image. My obedience in that small moment might be the dash of color that makes sense of his struggle. His curiosity might be the answer to a prayer I never prayed.

This shatters the holding pattern myth completely. You are not circling, waiting for permission to land and begin your real work. You are already on the worksite. Your current location, your relationships, your conversations, your inbox, your quiet moments, is your divinely appointed workstation. The perceived stillness is the focused concentration of the Artist at work, and you are the brush in His hand. The links from a friend, the nudge to call someone, the quiet hour of study; these are not distractions from your path. They are the path.

There is no waiting room. There is only the workshop. There is no pause. There is only purposeful positioning. Your collaboration is not a secondary activity; it is the primary method of the Master Artist. He is building His kingdom one connected brushstroke at a time, and your willing hand is always part of the painting.

When has a seemingly random interaction with someone else recently felt less like an interruption and more like a deliberate part of a larger work?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Let’s talk about prayer. Not the formal, distant kind, but the raw, running conversation between a child and a good Father. The kind that happens in the shower, on a drive, in the quiet of a morning journal. It’s in these spaces where faith is lived, not just theorized.

I found myself writing one of those prayers recently. It started like they often do, with gratitude. Thank you for the roof, the peace, the family (even the ones I struggle with), the clean clothes, the cleansing. Gratitude, I’m learning, is the soil where trust grows.

Then, almost sheepishly, the list began to form. The needs. The wants. The “I would likes…” Cell phone bills, car repairs, insurance, dreams of a camper van and a new life in a cool place, vet visits, household bills. The mundane and the monumental, all jumbled together. The math even came to mind: $300k conservatively, $500k generously.

And right there, in the ink on the page, the lesson presented itself. This is the pivot point of true faith. The moment where our child-like asking meets our child-like trust.

We are commanded to ask. Yahusha was unequivocal: “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7, ESV). He framed it in the most tender terms: what human father, when his son asks for bread, gives him a stone? “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!” (Matthew 7:9-11, ESV).

So we bring our list. We are meant to. But we must bring it with the right heart. We bring it not as demands to an ATM, but as confessions to a Dad. We bring it with the preface that frames everything: “Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

This is the sacred surrender. It is saying, “Father, here are the things my limited human eyes see as needs. The broken car, the looming bill, the dream of a fresh start. I am bringing them to your feet not because I know better than You what is good for me, but because I trust You completely. Your will is always better for me than my will.”

This aligns perfectly with the other pillar of His teaching: “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:33, ESV). Our asking isn’t divorced from our seeking. We ask for provision within the context of seeking His Kingdom. The prayer journal showed this: gratitude first, then the list, then the immediate surrender of that list to His will and His mission. The request for clarity of mind, for strength against unclean compulsions, for words to disciple a friend, for healing for a neighbor, these are Kingdom-seeking prayers. They are about becoming the person He wants me to be, right where I am.

This is the confidence John speaks of: “And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him” (1 John 5:14-15, ESV).

Asking “according to his will” isn’t a magic incantation. It is the slow, daily work of aligning my desires with His. It is wanting His glory more than I want my comfort. It is wanting His timing over my urgency. It is trusting that the “good things” He promises (Matthew 7:11) may look different from my $500k dream. They may be the peace to endure the wait. The creativity to solve the problem. The community to support the need. Or the quiet “no” that protects me from a path that would ultimately shipwreck my faith.

So, we make our lists. We be specific. We are honest about our dreams for a van, for a cool place, for freedom from debt. This is the “asking.” But then, we must practice the “letting go.” We place the list at His feet and say, “Not my will, but Yours.” We trade anxiety for petition wrapped in thanksgiving (Philippians 4:6).

The detox mentioned in the journal…the physical cleansing, is a powerful picture of the spiritual process. As the toxins leave the body, clarity emerges. As we surrender our will, our anxieties, our demanding spirits to Him, a clarity of mind and purpose emerges. We start to see our needs through His eyes. The list doesn’t disappear, but it ceases to be a source of worry. It becomes a subject for trustful conversation.

This is the daily walk. The daily grain of sand. Bringing our humanity, our bills, our dreams, our struggles with family and compulsions…into the presence of the Divine, and leaving transformed. Not because we got the van, but because we got more of Him in the process. And He is, always, the ultimate provision.

A Prayer of List and Letting Go:

Father Most High,

Thy will be done, here in my life, just as it is perfectly done in heaven.

Thank you. For the breath in my lungs, the roof over my head, the people you’ve placed in my path, for all of it, the easy and the hard.

Here is my heart, laid bare before you.

Here are my needs, both great and small: the practical burdens of this month, the dreams that feel too big, the relationships that need your mending, the healing my body and spirit crave.

I present them to you, not as one who knows better, but as a child who trusts.

I seek first your Kingdom and your righteousness. Align my desires with Yours.

If my dream is from You, pave the way and I will walk in it with joy.

If it is not, gently close the door and give me a heart of patient, expectant peace.

Help me to be sober-minded, loving, and useful in Your hands today.

Speak through me to those who need to hear from You.

I ask all these things, in full confidence of Your goodness and perfect will, in the mighty name of Yahusha the Messiah.

Amen.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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The question landed in my spirit this morning with the quiet weight of a stone dropped into still water. It began as a journal entry, a simple line of thought that quickly revealed the deep crack running through the foundation of our world. “Just believe,” the voice around us says. “Faith is a feeling, an assent, a transaction of the mind.” But another voice, the one that has been my truest companion on this narrow path, whispered back: “What about to truly love?”

Yahusha was devastatingly clear on this point. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments,” He said (John 14:15, ESV). And to the lawyer testing Him, He distilled all of life’s purpose into this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets” (Matthew 22:37-40, ESV). Love is not a sentiment. It is an action. It is obedience.

Which brings me to the list. The ten. The words spoken by the very voice of Yahuah from the fire on the mountain (Exodus 20:1-17). They are not suggestions. They are the foundational architecture of a functional universe, the Owner’s manual for the human heart.

1. No other gods before Him.

2. No carved images, no worship of created things.

3. Do not take His name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy.

5. Honor your father and mother.

6. Do not murder.

7. Do not commit adultery.

8. Do not steal.

9. Do not bear false witness.

10. Do not covet.

Simple. Direct. Ten rules. Not ten thousand. Ten.

And here is the question that sat on my heart, the one I now bring to you: If we, as a species, can’t even manage to obey these ten basic, life-giving laws, laws written on our consciences, echoed in every decent society’s code then what arrogant fantasy makes us think we can successfully observe and legislate the tens of thousands of complex, contradictory statutes that make up our modern empires?

We build towers of Babel made of legal code, thinking complexity equals progress. We draft endless regulations to manage the symptoms of our societal sickness, the greed, the violence, the deceit, the idolatry…while ignoring the disease itself: a heart in rebellion against its Creator. We try to patch a crumbling dam with more bureaucracy, all while ignoring the massive, foundational crack right at its base.

As I wrote in The Master’s Plan, The Son’s Missions, we have forgotten that the same Savior who offers grace is the Judge who demands righteousness. We want the forgiveness without the transformation, the label of “believer” without the walk of obedience. We have, as I explored in The Wheat and the Tares, created a faith that often focuses on the wrong harvest, on outward appearance rather than the fruit of a heart aligned with Yahuah’s will.

These Ten Commandments are that will, in its most concise form. The first four outline our vertical relationship with God: worship Him alone, don’t reduce Him to an idol, revere His name, set aside time for Him. The final six outline our horizontal relationships with each other: honor life, honor covenant, honor property, honor truth, honor contentment.

If every human heart yielded to these ten principles, what would vanish? The relentless pursuit of money, status, and pleasure that becomes our modern idolatry (Commandments 1-2). The profane carelessness with which we treat the holy (3). The 24/7 grind that burns out our souls and families (4). The broken homes and fatherless children (5). The news cycles of violence and outrage (6). The shattered marriages and relational betrayal (7). The fraud, the exploitation, the inequality rooted in theft (8). The media spin, the political lies, the social media deceptions (9). The entire engine of consumerism and discontent that fuels our economy (10).

It would be a different world. A kingdom world.

But we can’t. In our own strength, we are utterly incapable. This is the very point of the law. It shows us our need. It leads us to the cross, where the blood of Yahusha covers our failure. And it leads us to the New Covenant, promised long ago: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33, ESV).

The solution is not more human laws. It is surrendered hearts. It is moving from believing in God to believing God…enough to do what He says. It is the slow, daily walk of obedience I wrote about in The Slow Walk, where love is proven in the small, unseen choices.

So, let’s ask ourselves plainly: Do I love Him? Then let the proof be in my obedience, not to earn His love, but because I have received it. Let my life be a lived-out answer to His ten words. Let my citizenship be in a kingdom built on that rock, not in an empire collapsing under the weight of its own ten thousand complex, unkeepable rules.

That is the question. Our collective chaos is the answer. And His grace is the only way through.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Shashue Monrauch

I want to talk with you today about a fracture in our understanding, a crack that runs right through the heart of how many of us see God. It’s the idea, so common now in 2026, that the God of the Old Testament is somehow a different being than the God of the New. One is portrayed as a God of wrath, of rules, of judgment…mean, distant, and harsh. The other is seen as a God of grace, of love, of forgiveness…sweet, approachable, and kind. We’ve created a divine split personality, preferring the Son over the Father, as if the Son came to correct the Father’s mistakes.

This isn’t just a theological error. It’s a spiritual blindness with dangerous consequences. It arises from a fundamental confusion of the order between the Father and the Son, and a loss of understanding about the distinct missions the Master has given His Son. We love to talk about Yahusha as our Savior. We bask in that grace. But we rarely, if ever, acknowledge with the same fervor that this same Yahusha, authorized by His Father, is also our Judge.

Let’s walk through this together. Let’s lay aside what culture tells us and look at the story the scriptures are telling. It’s a story of one God, one plan, and two world-altering missions carried out by the same beloved Son.

The Father’s Heart and the Sent Son

To untangle this, we must start at the beginning, with the Father. Yahuah, the great I AM, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, is not a moody deity who changed His mind between Malachi and Matthew. His character is consistent: holy, just, merciful, and abounding in steadfast love.

The problem was never with the Father’s nature; it was with our ability to live up to His holy standard. The law revealed His character and our brokenness. The prophets cried out for a solution. And the Father’s answer was always His Son.

The Master sent His Son the first time with a very specific, focused mission. It was a mission defined by the vocabulary of redemption: to serve, to teach, to forgive, to love, to be the suffering servant. Yahusha said it plainly: “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45, ESV). He came to be the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). His “rules of engagement” for this mission were humility, compassion, and self-sacrifice. He turned the other cheek.

Yahusha came to earth the first time through the womb of a virgin, lived in relative obscurity for 30 years, doing human things and eventually stepped on the stage for His final three years. But scripture tells us He returns the second time in a very different manner and “style”, if you will.

On His first assignment, he prayed for His persecutors. He allowed Himself to be mocked, tortured, and crucified. Why? To fulfill the Father’s will to redeem a people for Himself. He was the perfect Executor of the Father’s saving plan.

This is the Yahusha we know and love. This is the image we cling to. And it is right and good to do so.

The Great Irony of Expectations

Here is where history gives us a piercing irony. When Yahusha came the first time, the Jewish people, living under the severe thumb of Roman oppression, were reading the same prophetic scriptures we have. They saw the promises of a conquering King from David’s line, a Messiah who would break the rods of their oppressors. They were expecting the Warrior-King, the Judge who would bring deliverance through power and might.

Instead, they got a “hippie” from Nazareth. A man who talked of loving enemies, of a kingdom not of this world, who rode a donkey instead of a warhorse. They expected the Lion of Judah; they got the Lamb who goes silently to the slaughter. They were looking for the mission of judgment and were confounded by the mission of salvation. Many rejected Him because He did not fit their expectation.

Now, flip the script to our day. We have fully embraced the Lamb. Our modern theology, our worship songs, our preaching often present only the Savior of unconditional acceptance. We have created a Jesus in our own image…always gentle, always affirming, never confronting. We expect, if we think of His return at all, this same gentle rabbi coming back. We are utterly unprepared, just as the first-century Jews were, but for the opposite reason. We expect the Savior; He is returning as the Judge.

We have taken the first mission and assumed it is His only disposition. We have comforted ourselves with half a Messiah.

The Second Mission: To Judge and to Reign

But the scripture is unblinkingly clear about the Son’s return. The Father, who sent Him first to save, will send Him again with a different mission. “And he [the Father] has given him [the Son] authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man” (John 5:27, ESV). Paul stood in Athens and declared, “[God] has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:31, ESV).

The book of Revelation unveils this Judge in terrifyingly glorious detail. This is not the meek Yahusha of Galilee. This is the glorified Son of Man, the Faithful and True Witness, the King of kings.

“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! The one sitting on it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. His eyes are like a flame of fire… From his mouth comes a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty.” (Revelation 19:11-15, ESV)

His eyes like a flame of fire see through every pretense, every hidden sin, every secret act of faithfulness. The sword from His mouth is His word, the same word that said, “Let there be light,” the same word that said, “Your sins are forgiven.” That word will execute perfect, final justice. The time for pleading, for mercy extended through His sacrifice, will be past. The time for settling accounts will have come.

This is not a different God. This is not a Son who has overruled a cranky Father. This is the same Son, perfectly executing the second phase of the Father’s single, holy plan. The Lamb who was slain is worthy to take the scroll and open its seals (Revelation 5:9). The One who submitted to death is the One to whom the Father has given all authority to judge the living and the dead.

The Demand of Love: Obedience

This brings us to the heart of the matter: love. We forget that God desires willingly given love. And love, in His economy, is not a fuzzy feeling. It is allegiance. It is obedience. Yahusha Himself said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, ESV). And again, “Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me” (John 14:21, ESV).

He wasn’t speaking of a new, relaxed list. He was referring to the spirit and intent of the Father’s instructions…the law written on our hearts by the New Covenant (Jeremiah 31:33). All of them. The ones about loving Him with all our heart, soul, and mind, and loving our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). This is how we show Yahuah we love Him. Not just in sentimental words or intellectual knowledge of texts, but in the doing. In the way we live with one another. In how we obey Him.

The gentle Savior of the first coming was not morally permissive. He raised the standard of the law to its true, heart-level intent (Matthew 5:21-48). He called for radical obedience, for a righteousness that exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (Matthew 5:20). The Judge of the second coming will assess our lives by this very standard. He will separate the sheep from the goats based on acts of mercy done to “the least of these” (Matthew 25:31-46). He will test the quality of each person’s work with fire (1 Corinthians 3:13).

The parable of the minas in Luke 19 is a stark picture of this. The nobleman (Yahusha) goes away to receive a kingdom. To his servants, he gives resources and says, “Engage in business until I come” (Luke 19:13, ESV). When he returns, he rewards the faithful servants who multiplied what was entrusted to them. But to the wicked servant who hid his mina out of fear, saying, “I was afraid of you, because you are a severe man. You take what you did not deposit, and reap what you did not sow,” the master replies, “I will condemn you with your own words” (Luke 19:21-22, ESV). And his judgment is severe. Furthermore, for the citizens who said, “We do not want this man to reign over us,” the command is, “Bring them here and slaughter them before me” (Luke 19:27, ESV).

This is the same Yahusha. The one who extends grace now will dispense justice then. His patience in this age is an invitation to repentance (2 Peter 3:9), not a license for lawlessness.

The Shaking and the Unshakable Kingdom

This is why the warning in Hebrews is so urgent: “See that you do not refuse him who is speaking… our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:25, 29, ESV). And, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens… in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain” (Hebrews 12:26-27, ESV).

Everything built on sand, on pride, on carnality (living by the fleshly nature), on love of self, money, and pleasure (2 Timothy 3:2-4)…will be shaken. Every kingdom, every institution, every life not founded on the Rock of hearing and doing His words (Luke 6:47-49) will suffer great ruin. The shaking is not random cruelty. It is the necessary, merciful removal of all that opposes the holy will of the Father so that His pure, unshakable Kingdom may be established.

We live in the tension between the two missions. We dwell in the grace of the first coming while the shadow of the second lengthens across our world. Our calling is not to terror, but to clear-eyed, sober-minded faithfulness. We are to build with gold, silver, and precious stones, the works of the Spirit, not with the wood, hay, and straw of the flesh (1 Corinthians 3:12). We are to move from carnality to spirituality, setting our minds on the things of the Spirit (Romans 8:5).

The Reward of the Faithful

Let me end not with fear, but with the happiest note imaginable for those who know and love God…not just in words, but in the obedient doing.

For the faithful servant, the one who has heard the Master’s words and built upon the Rock, the second coming is not a threat. It is the blessed hope, the glorious appearing (Titus 2:13). It is the moment when the King returns to say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master” (Matthew 25:21, ESV).

It is the final rectification of all wrongs. The end of suffering, injustice, and evil. The wedding feast of the Lamb (Revelation 19:9). The restoration of all things. The wiping away of every tear (Revelation 21:4). It is the glorious fulfillment of the prayer Yahusha taught us: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10, ESV).

The Rider on the white horse, with eyes of fire and a sword from His mouth, is also the Bridegroom coming for His spotless Bride. His judgment purges the world of all that defiles so that the New Jerusalem, where righteousness dwells, can come down (2 Peter 3:13, Revelation 21:2). For the one who loves Him and keeps His commandments, this Judge is our Champion, our Vindicator, our coming King.

So, walk on, friends. Know the whole story. Worship the one true God…Father, Son, and Spirit…in the breathtaking fullness of who He is. Embrace the Savior who forgives you completely. Prepare for the Judge who will evaluate your life faithfully. Let your love for Him be proven by your obedience to Him. Build your life on the Rock of His words.

And when you see the signs of the times, the shaking that has begun, do not fear. Be grateful that you are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken (Hebrews 12:28). Offer to Yahuah the worship He truly desires: a life of reverence, awe, and willing obedience.

The Master sent His Son. He sent Him first to save us. He will send Him again to gather us, reward us, and reign with us forever. That is the good news, the whole, unshakable, glorious good news.

If Yahusha returned today to judge you, not your church, not your political party, not your religion, but you, where would you find yourself? This isn’t meant to scare you, but to make the future hope or warning…visceral and immediate. It’s a question I have to ask myself, too.

Would the gaze of those fiery eyes pass over you as wheat gathered into His barn, or would you be sorted out as a tare, fit only for the fire? Would the door to the wedding feast swing open for you, your lantern burning with the oil of faithful readiness, wick trimmed in expectation? Or would you be left outside in the darkness, your lamp empty and guttering out? When the Shepherd-King separates the nations, would you be placed on His right side with the sheep, or on His left with the goats?

These aren’t theoretical questions for a distant theology. They are the pressing, personal questions of a life built either on the rock of obedience or the sand of presumption. His return is the fixed point toward which all of history is moving. The only question that remains is: On which side of that line will I be found?

It all comes down to the condition of your heart today, revealed not by your words, but by your walk. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven” (Matthew 7:21, ESV).

“And Samuel said, “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the LORD? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the LORD, he has also rejected you from being king.” (1 Samuel 15:22-23, ESV)”

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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• Shashue npub1ldn7g28j6rc49gmmyh2yk4z8y688hhuuzgs2v5q2erz784cegshs6427d0

Thanks for your time and support.

Shashue Monrauch

Almost two years, as I write this. Two years since the ground beneath my feet shifted from the firm, familiar topsoil of inherited belief to the solid, unyielding bedrock of a Person. That’s how I mark time now: not by calendars, but by the distance traveled on a path I never knew was there until I stumbled onto it.

For those of you who have been walking this Way for decades, this might all be Captain Obvious stuff. Feel free to walk on ahead. I’m just pausing here at this almost two-year marker to catch my breath and look back at the terrain I’ve crossed. It’s less a sermon and more a trail report from a fellow pilgrim who’s still breaking in his boots.

The first thing I had to understand, the thing that caused all the initial spiritual friction, was the simple, seismic difference between being a “Christian” and being a “walker of the Way.”

For most of my life, “Christian” would have been how I self-identified. My sisters and I were raised Catholic and went to Catholic schools our whole lives. It was a heritage. A family name. A box checked on a form. It was a set of ideas I agreed with, mostly. It was a cultural identity, worn like a comfortable sweater. It required little from me except a general assent and an appearance on certain holidays.

But “a walker of the Way”? That’s what I’ve become. Or rather, what I’m becoming. The difference isn’t semantic. It’s ontological. It’s the difference between owning a map of a mountain and actually climbing it. Between admiring a portrait and entering into a relationship with the Person painted.

Yahusha didn’t say, “I am a set of correct doctrines.” He said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, ESV). The Way is a Person. To walk it is to follow Him. Your life’s trajectory, your moral compass, your very hope, gets re-anchored. Not in a philosophy, but in a living Guide.

This path has a name: the narrow way. “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14, ESV). I used to think “narrow” meant restrictive, like a set of picky rules. Now I see it means specific. It is the path of obedience to a King, not the suggestion box of a culture. It’s the difference between Kingdom Law and Empire Law, and you feel that tension in your bones every single day.

The early church knew this. They didn’t call themselves “Christians” at first. That was a label slapped on them by outsiders in Antioch (Acts 11:26). Their own name for themselves was “the Way” (Acts 9:2, 19:9, 23). It was their identity. It meant their entire life…ethics, community, purpose, was oriented around following this Person, Yahusha. It marked them as distinct, separate, a people whose citizenship was elsewhere. They were “sojourners and exiles” (1 Peter 2:11, ESV).

That’s what I’ve learned: walking the Way isn’t a one-time decision you make at an altar. It’s a verb. It’s peripateō…to walk, to conduct one’s life. “Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Ephesians 4:1, ESV). “Walk by the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16, ESV). It’s active, continuous, daily. You don’t arrive; you journey.

And this journey, I’ve learned, is not a group tour on a luxury coach. It’s a custom-tailored trek. Getting to know Yahuah isn’t a one-and-done download. We will never, in these skin-and-bone bodies, know all there is to know about Him. This walk is an evolutionary process. By His grace, He pulls back the curtain on more truth, and as He does, we know our Father more. Some call it “spiritual growth.” My curve and direction will look different from yours. Why? Because the Designer knows His creation. “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb” (Psalm 139:13, ESV). He knows the path that will best shape me into the image of His Son, and it won’t be the same path He uses for you.

We think we know the best configuration for our lives. We use our “free will” like a machete to carve our own paths through the jungle, convinced this is freedom. Unbeknownst to us, that’s precisely what the enemy wants. “Do as thou wilt,” he whispers, the oldest lie in the book. We’ve been deceived into believing “freedom to sin” is superior to “freedom from sin.” It’s the repeating pattern of rebellion, from Eden to today.

So, what does this daily walk actually look like on the ground, two years in? It looks shockingly small.

For months, I told people…I told myself, “God has me in a holding pattern.” I was waiting for the big move, the clear sign, the divine detour. I felt stagnant. Then I realized: the holding pattern was my blindness. I was looking for the earthquake, the parting sea. God was working in grains of sand. One obedient choice. One resisted temptation. One silent prayer offered instead of a complaint launched. One small kindness to a stranger. Day by day, grain by grain. I was waiting for a skyscraper to appear; He was laying a foundation, brick by tiny brick.

He taught me the staggering importance of the small obediences. The “nudges” you almost ignore. The phone call you feel prompted to make. The apology that sticks in your throat. I’ve seen, in heartbreaking clarity, how my disobedience in a small thing, something that made no sense to my limited view, can deprive someone else of a blessing, an answered prayer, a moment of grace. We are connected in ways we cannot see. Our obedience is never just about us.

He reshaped my understanding of worship. Praise isn’t the rigid pursuit of man-made doctrine or the hollow performance of tradition. It’s walking through my days as His image-bearer. It’s exemplifying how a loved son moves through moments. Does a loved son gripe about his Father’s provision? Does he cut corners on the tasks his Father sets? No. He moves with trust, with gratitude, representing his Father’s character in every interaction.

He redefined “church” for me. My church isn’t a corporation, a building, or an appointment on my calendar. My church is the people I encounter as I move through the day. The cashier, the neighbor, the delivery driver, the stranger in line. They are my parish. My pulpit is the sidewalk, the checkout lane, my own front porch.

And love. Oh, He expanded love until it broke my old containers. Love isn’t a warm feeling I reserve for those who are easy to love. “If anyone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen” (1 John 4:20, ESV). Love is the conscious choice to see the image of God in the homeless man, the angry clerk, the offensive relative, the annoying neighbor. When my emotions are stoked, I’ve learned to hit pause. To seek the Spirit. My most frequent prayer has become, “Lord, I’m feeling ______. Help me understand what You want me to understand here, and show me what You want me to do.” Then I wait. I get still. And He answers. Not always with thunder, but with a recalibration of my heart.

I’ve also realized Yahuah speaks a custom language to each of His children. The way He speaks to me…through a sudden clarity in scripture, through a quiet nudge in my conscience, through the beauty of a sunrise that feels like a personal note, won’t be the same way He speaks to you. And just when I think I’ve learned His vocabulary for me, He uses a new dialect. More than once, I’ve whispered in awe, “I didn’t know You could speak to me that way.” He is endlessly creative. “But when I speak with you, I will open your mouth,” He told Ezekiel (Ezekiel 3:27, ESV). He opens our ears, too, in unique ways.

All this walking has made the enemy’s tactics painfully clear. In our culture, his most effective tools are deception and distraction. He doesn’t usually attack with obvious horror; he seduces with plausible substitutes. He convinces us we’re pleasing God when we’re actually just polishing the empire’s idols. We get distracted by “foolish controversies… quarrels about the law,” which are “unprofitable and worthless” (Titus 3:9, ESV). We bicker over the shiny things of Babylon while Rome burns. We mistake cultural battles for spiritual warfare.

The enemy’s playbook hasn’t changed since Eden. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ” (2 Corinthians 11:3, ESV). He twists truth just enough. He offers a broader, more popular path. Here’s a hard truth I’ve had to swallow: if the majority of the people around you are moving in the same direction you are, you’re probably not on the narrow path. The wide road is popular for a reason.

So, after two years, what do I understand?

I understand that walking the Way means my faith has moved from my head to my feet. It’s not what I think; it’s where I’m going and how I’m getting there.

I understand that the journey is custom-made by a Father who knows me better than I know myself.

I understand that the “big” work of God usually happens in the small, daily obedience I’m tempted to overlook.

I understand that my church is everywhere my feet take me, and my worship is how I treat the people I meet there.

I understand that love is a decision to see Yahuah’s image in every face, especially the difficult ones.

I understand that the enemy’s greatest victory is making me think I’m serving God while I’m actually just serving myself in a religious costume.

And I understand that the path is narrow, often lonely, but it is the only one that leads to Life.

The walk continues. The road is hard. But the Guide is good. And I am, finally, no longer just a Christian. I am, by His grace, a walker of the Way.

Where does your path feel narrowest right now? Is it in a relationship, a habit, a belief you’re being asked to shed? That might be exactly where the real walking begins.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Shashue Monrauch

I say it often. Maybe you’ve said it, too. “God has me in a holding pattern.” It slips out with a sigh, a shrug, a feeling of spiritual treadmiller. The scenery isn’t changing. The breakthrough hasn’t broken. The big sign hasn’t appeared. It feels like a succession of Groundhog Days, where the only movement is the sun rising and setting on the same set of unresolved prayers.

But let me ask us both a blunt question: Is it true?

When I use that phrase, what I’m really confessing is my blindness. I am blind to the things God is doing around me, in me, through me. My expectation is calibrated for the earthquake, the parting sea, the shout from heaven. So when the day passes in quiet obedience, in unseen resistance, in a small kindness offered, I file it under “Nothing Happened.” I miss the work because I’m looking for the wrong kind of worker.

But when I look back…really look back, through the rearview mirror of my life, those stretches I labeled “holding patterns” were nothing of the sort. God was there. He was just doing His work in small bites. Day-by-day, grain-by-grain construction.

Think of it like a beach with no sand. You stand on empty, hard-packed dirt. God places one grain of sand on that shore. Just one. The next day, He adds another. And another. Each day, a single grain. You walk that shore every morning and perceive no difference. The landscape seems static. You sigh and think, “Still here. Still waiting. Holding pattern.”

But months pass. Years pass. And one day you wake up, and you’re standing on a beach. A vast, golden, sun-warmed beach. You enjoy it. You walk on it, have picnics on it, meditate on its beauty. You forget the empty shore entirely. You forget the daily, imperceptible delivery. Because the finished product is so complete, so grand, you assume it must have arrived all at once. You missed the building because you were waiting for a building crew, not a patient, persistent Artist placing one grain at a time.

We do this. We set out each new day looking for the big “God move.” We want the Kairos moment, the Damascus road light, the prison-shaking earthquake. And when a time, times, and half a time goes by without it, we conclude we’re on pause. We overlook the small, the miniscule, the quiet miracle of incremental grace.

But Scripture is the story of the grain, not just the harvest. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants” (Matthew 13:31-32, ESV). The work starts invisibly small. “He who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will supply and multiply your seed for sowing and increase the harvest of your righteousness” (2 Corinthians 9:10, ESV). The multiplication happens in His hands, over His time, often outside our sight.

We hear a lot about pruning. Cutting off dead branches. Purifying hearts in the furnace. And that’s true, He is a refiner’s fire. But there are two sides to His work. While He is cutting here, He is also building there. While He is simplifying one area, He is multiplying another. That multiplication often feels like a holding pattern because it lacks the drama of the cut.

So as we step into this new week, let’s adjust our eyes. Let’s be mindful of the grain of sand being added to our shoreline today. Did you choose patience over irritation? That’s a grain. Did you offer a silent prayer instead of a complaint? That’s a grain. Did you faithfully do the small, unseen task He set before you? That’s a grain. Give thanks for it. It only seems small because you lack the hindsight of a thousand tomorrows that will reveal the majestic coastline He is crafting.

If you think you’re in a holding pattern this season, stop looking for the air traffic controller’s signal. Look down. Look for the single grain of sand. Thank the Most High for it. Understand this: you are not in a waiting room. You are on the work site. And the Architect is always, always on the job.

What is one “grain of sand” you can identify from yesterday that you might have previously dismissed as nothing?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Shashue Monrauch

This is the portrait of the covenant. This is us. We are Gomer. We pledged ourselves to a faithful God at Sinai and then sprinted toward every Baal we could find. We called it freedom. He called it whoredom.

The heart of Hosea is the heart of God, ripped open and bleeding on the page. “Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak tenderly to her… And there she shall answer as in the days of her youth” (Hosea 2:14-15, ESV). Despite our betrayal, His love pursues. He doesn’t disown. He woos. He disciplines to restore. “How can I give you up, O Ephraim?… My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender” (Hosea 11:8, ESV).

But here’s the crushing weight of Hosea: the prophet’s story, and by extension God’s story with Israel, ends with a plea, not a finale. The final chapter is a desperate prayer from a broken people: “Take away all iniquity; accept what is good, and we will offer the fruit of our lips… I will heal their apostasy; I will love them freely” (Hosea 14:2, 4, ESV). It is a cry for a healing not yet realized. It is a covenant still fractured, a marriage still in need of a final, perfect reconciliation. Hosea buys Gomer back from the slave market (Hosea 3:2), a powerful picture of redemption, but the story’s final note is one of longed-for healing, not declared completion.

The story hangs there, unresolved, for centuries.

Then, on a Roman execution device, a man with nail-torn hands speaks three words that rush into that ancient, aching silence: “It is finished” (John 19:30, ESV). Tetelestai. Paid in full.

In that moment, Hosea’s prophetic marriage finds its eternal bridegroom. The love that allured an adulterous people into the wilderness was now sealed with blood. The price Hosea paid in silver and barley to buy back his wife was a shadow of the price Yahusha paid in His own life to buy back His church. The plea of Hosea 14 “heal our apostasy” was answered with a declaration from the cross: “Healed.”

Hosea ends with a prayer for restoration. Revelation ends with its proclamation: “It is done!” (Revelation 21:6, ESV). The first completes redemption; the second completes restoration. Together, they bookend what Hosea could only prophesy.

We are Gomer. Loved while we were still whores. Bought back at a price no prophet could afford. The covenant we broke has been repaired by the only One who could keep it. Our story is no longer one of cyclical adultery and temporary return. It is one of a finished work. The marriage is secured. The vow is eternally kept.

The question Hosea leaves us with is answered by the cross: “How can I give you up?” The answer is, “He didn’t.” He finished it.

Will we live like the purchased bride, or like we’re still for sale?

How can God tell one from the other?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

If you enjoy Faith In The Fast Lane, I would be incredibly grateful for your support. Consider using one or more of the links below.

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Shashue Monrauch

This piece is for the man I was a year and a half ago. I was that guy, hungry for real community, turning over every stone I found in the traditional places…the Bible study circles, the Sunday morning pews. And in most of them, I felt it. A grating, a resistance, a spiritual friction that made my soul feel like it was rubbing against sandpaper.

I didn’t understand it then. I thought the problem was me. But this message is what I’ve since learned about that friction. It wasn’t a flaw in my seeking. It was a signal.

We must begin with a simple, staggering fact: God makes covenants. He binds Himself. He speaks reality into being with His words and then, in a move of breathtaking grace, He includes us in the story. The first covenant, what many call the Old Testament, was a masterclass in His patient, pedagogical heart. It had many parts…land, law, blessing, curse. But I want to talk about its beating heart: the priesthood.

Under that first covenant, the system had a specific, God-ordained plumbing. Sin created a breach between a holy God and His people. The repair, the atonement, flowed through a specific channel: the Levitical priesthood. Aaron, Moses’ brother, a great-grandson of Levi, was chosen. His sons after him were chosen. They were the Kohanim. They stood in the gap. They took the blood of bulls and goats, they entered the tabernacle, they made intercession. It was a sacred, solemn, and utterly temporary system. It was a picture, a shadow, a tutor leading us to the substance.

Think of the lineage. Abraham, our father in the faith, paid a tithe to a mysterious priest-king named Melchizedek. Five generations later, Abraham’s descendant Aaron puts on the sacred ephod. From Abraham to Aaron: Isaac, Jacob, Levi, Kohath, Amram, Aaron. The line is clear, human, traceable.

But Melchizedek… there’s the rub. The Scripture gives him no genealogy. No beginning of days, no end of life. He appears in Genesis 14 as “priest of God Most High” and then vanishes. He is of a different order. A higher order. Abraham, the patriarch, the one holding the promise, paid homage to him. The writer of Hebrews lays it bare: the lesser (Levi, still in Abraham’s loins) pays tithes to the greater (Melchizedek). The Levitical priesthood, for all its God-given glory, was established by “a law of a fleshly commandment” (Hebrews 7:16, ESV). It was based on physical descent. It was mortal. It was repetitive.

Melchizedek’s priesthood was based on the “power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16, ESV).

Do you see it? The first covenant contained, within its own sacred text, a blueprint for its own obsolescence. It pointed to a priesthood not of tribe, but of triumph. Not of lineage, but of life itself.

Then came the New Covenant. The New Testament. And with it, the gospel, the good news that shatters every earthly system.

The gospel is this: Yahusha the Messiah, the Son of God, died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, and was raised to life on the third day. Through faith in Him, we receive forgiveness and are reconciled to God (1 Corinthians 15:3-4, ESV).

This single, historical, earth-shattering event changed everything. It rendered the old plumbing obsolete. Why? Because God provided the final, perfect, and complete sacrifice: Himself. The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The same sacrifice He provided in the thicket for Abraham, sparing Isaac, He did not spare for Himself. He gave His only Son.

In short, the gospel declares our new High Priest: Yahusha. He is our one mediator. He is the intermediator between God and man. And His priesthood is not after the order of Aaron. It is “after the order of Melchizedek” (Psalm 110:4, Hebrews 5:6, ESV). Eternal. Unchanging. Based on an indestructible life, proven by His resurrection.

This is where our feet must hit the pavement of our daily lives. When we insert any other mediator between ourselves and the Father, be it a person, a ritual, a system, a tradition, what are we saying with our actions? We are saying, “Yahuah, the sacrifice of Your only begotten Son was insufficient. Your new and living way is not quite enough. I need something more, something else, something older.” We are, in effect, calling the crucifixion a waste and the empty tomb a nice gesture. How cruel is that? How utterly antithetical to the willful, explosive, finished expression of love that was the cross?

This is why the testimony is unanimous and unyielding:

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6, ESV).

“And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12, ESV).

“For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Timothy 2:5, ESV).

He is the door. The only door. If anyone enters by Him, he will be saved (John 10:9, ESV).

This truth does not make us comfortable. It makes us distinct. It sets us apart. The Master sent servants, and we shunned and killed them. Then He sent His Son. To follow that Son is to inherit the world’s hatred. “If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you” (John 15:19, ESV).

We are meant to be visibly, undeniably different. We are “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession” (1 Peter 2:9, ESV). We are sojourners and exiles in a system built on a different covenant. We are the salt that stings the wound of the world’s corruption. We are the light that exposes its comfortable darkness. This is not optional. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind” (Romans 12:2, ESV).

The enemy’s deepest deception is not outright atheism. It is a corrupted understanding of covenant. It is taking the beautiful, finished work of Yahusha and adding layers of human mediation back onto it. It is using fancy words to debate what “new” really means while clinging to old, broken systems. It is changing the potent, meaningful names…Yahuah, Yahusha, for generic titles like “Lord” and “God” that any pagan religion can use. It is smoothing out our distinct edges so we fit better into the empire’s machinery.

But we are not called to fit. We are called to follow. And He commanded us to “make disciples… teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20, ESV).

This will look different for every walker of the Way. For some, the disciple-making is on a street corner with a voice raw from truth. For some, it is in the quiet sanctuary of a home, raising children in the fear and admonition of Yahuah. For some, it is in the faithful endurance of a difficult marriage, showing a covenant-keeping love. For some, it is in the radical generosity that pours out their resources for the sojourner and the poor. For some, it is in simply doing their job with such integrity and joy that it provokes a question: “Why are you different?”

The method is as varied as the members of the Body. But the message is singular: Yahusha the Messiah, our Eternal High Priest after the order of Melchizedek, has opened a new and living way through His flesh. The old system of tribe and temple and temporary atonement is fulfilled, finished, and swallowed whole by a better hope.

So come. Come boldly. Not because you have the right lineage, but because you have the right Priest. Not because you have offered the right sacrifice, but because He has. You don’t need a human go-between. You have the Son. He is the door. Walk through Him, and find pasture. The law of a fleshly commandment has been superseded by the power of an indestructible life.

That life is mine and yours, by faith. Now go live like the royal priest you are.

What aspect of the old, earthly system do you find yourself most often trying to rely on, instead of resting in the finished work of your Eternal High Priest?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

If you enjoy Faith In The Fast Lane, I would be incredibly grateful for your support. Consider using one or more of the links below.

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• Shashue npub1ldn7g28j6rc49gmmyh2yk4z8y688hhuuzgs2v5q2erz784cegshs6427d0

Thanks for your time and support.

Shashue Monrauch

This morning I want to re-tell an old story. You can find the original in the bible.

He created us. This is our beginning, the only fact that matters. Before memory, before time, before we knew our own names, He knew us. He formed us from dust and breathed His own life into us. We were His, born of a thought in the mind of God, fashioned for a purpose only He fully understood. This is not a metaphor. It is the bedrock.

Then, He made a promise. A covenant. He said, “I will be your God, and you will be my people.” He came to us, the Son of Man, and etched this relationship in stone and spirit. The terms were not hidden in fine print. They were declared from a mountain, whispered to the prophets, lived in the flesh by the Messiah. The deal was breathtaking in its simplicity: He would be our protector, our provider, our guide, our very life. He would do certain things for us…provision, protection, presence…forever.

There was one condition. One. It was not a list of rituals. It was not a demand for perfection. It was the only thing a being who is Love itself could ask for: that we would freely, willfully love Him in return. Not because we had to. Not because we were coerced. But because we saw His goodness, His beauty, His worth, and our hearts, of their own accord, turned toward Him like a flower to the sun.

So then, the question that defines every human life: How do we show Him that we freely, willfully love Him?

We obey His commands.

Don’t flinch. Don’t let your modern mind twist that into some grim, slavish transaction. Think of it like this: My mother loved me. I know this because she fed me when I was hungry. She held me when I was scared. She spoke truth to me, even when it stung. Her love was not just a feeling in her heart; it was an action in my world. Her love had a language. My obedience to God is the exact same thing. It is the language of my love for Him. If I say, “I love you, Yahuah,” but I carve my security from a piece of wood or a bank account, my words are a hollow gong. If I say, “You are my all,” but I treat the day He sanctified as just another slot in my calendar for productivity, I am speaking a lie. Love acts. Love does what pleases the Beloved. His commands are not a fence to keep us from joy; they are the very shape of joy itself, the instruction manual for a heart synchronized with its Maker. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15, ESV).

We seek Him for guidance in all our ways and deeds. Not as a last resort, but as the first breath of every morning. “In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths” (Proverbs 3:6, ESV). This is the posture of love: a constant turning of the face, a perpetual, “What would you have me do here?” It is relational, moment-by-moment dependence. This is how we show our love is free and willful…we choose, again and again, to consult Him, to listen, to submit our small plans to His great one.

This was the way. This was the simple, beautiful, difficult dance of covenant love.

Then, the empire arrives. It always does. It did in the Garden, whispering, “Did God really say…?” It did in the wilderness, with a golden calf conjured before the echo of Sinai’s thunder had faded. It has happened so many times that the pattern is worn into the fabric of our history like a stain. The empire watches this intimate dance of love, this obedience, this seeking…and it finds it… inefficient. Unruly. A threat to its own authority. The empire cannot tolerate a higher loyalty.

So it begins its work, patient and corrosive. It convinces Yahuah’s children, that they no longer need to do these things, these specific, covenantal things, to show Yahuah they love Him. “That’s the old way,” it murmurs, smooth as polished marble. “That’s for a simpler time. We have progress now. We have enlightenment.” The empire offers a swap: keep the feeling of love for God, but outsource the expression of that love to a new manager. To the empire itself.

The slow, meticulous con reaches its apex. The empire, with its scholars and its systems, convinces the children that the very terms of the covenant have… evolved. Changed. Been updated. “Follow these new laws,” it proclaims, pointing to its own constitutions, its legal codes, its societal norms. “These will please Yahuah just the same. This is the new, improved way to show Him your freely, willfully offered love. Be a good citizen. Pay your taxes. Vote. Consume. Follow the program. This is how you honor Me now,” it says, stealing the divine pronoun.

And so, Yahuah’s children, now thoroughly confused, begin to build. They conjure governments. They draft constitutions. They erect vast, humming bureaucracies. And here is the devilish genius of it all: these new systems are not obviously evil. They look a lot like Yahuah’s laws. They borrow the vocabulary. They speak of “justice,” “order,” “rights,” “freedom,” “liberty.” They outlaw murder and theft (mostly). They pay lip service to family. But they are a forgery. They are close to Yahuah’s laws, but they are eternally, fatally far from the same, because their source is not holy. Their foundation is human sovereignty, not divine.

Look at the substitution, line by line. I see it every day.

The Kingdom says, “You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:3, ESV). The Empire enshrines secular pluralism, where the state is the final arbiter of truth and the marketplace of ideas is the highest altar. Our ultimate allegiance is legally redirected to the nation, the ideology, the economy.

The Kingdom says, “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy” (Exodus 20:8, ESV). The Empire builds a 24/7 economy where rest is a commodity you purchase, and ceasing work is a luxury or a sign of laziness. The rhythm of grace is replaced by the grind of production.

The Kingdom says, “Honor your father and your mother” (Exodus 20:12, ESV). The Empire asserts the state’s parens patriae power, positioning government experts as the ultimate authority over a child’s upbringing, education, and values, overriding parental wisdom with bureaucratic decree.

The Kingdom says, “You shall not murder” (Exodus 20:13, ESV). The Empire legally protects the destruction of life in the womb as a right and, in many places, claims for itself the authority to take life as punishment, a power never granted to any human court in the Torah.

The Kingdom says, “You shall not commit adultery” (Exodus 20:14, ESV). The Empire gives us no-fault divorce and a culture that celebrates fornication, severing sex from covenant and making a mockery of the sacred.

The Kingdom commands just weights and measures and forbids usury that preys on the poor (Exodus 22:25, Leviticus 19:35-36, ESV). The Empire constructs a labyrinthine financial system of hidden fees, predatory interest, and complex instruments designed to extract wealth legally, creating a permanent underclass.

This is the great deception. The enemy, in his depth, does not just create obvious evil. He creates a convincing imitation. He takes the good, holy law of God, adds a few of his own “improvements,” omits a few of the more “inconvenient” commands, and presents the whole package as a superior, updated model. “Follow these,” he says. “Be good empire citizens. This is what pleases God now.”

And we bought it. We bought it so completely that we forgot His very name. We replaced the Father’s name with a generic title. We excluded commandments that clashed with our commerce and altered others to fit our politics. We took the language of covenant and used it to bless our own ambitions. The Psalmist’s cry becomes our own haunting reality: “I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me!” (Psalm 119:19, ESV). We forgot we were sojourners. We tried to become citizens of the wrong kingdom.

And voilà. We have “Human Civilization 2026.” A world gleaming with technological marvels and starving for truth. A society connected by invisible networks and utterly disconnected from the Source of life. We have built a tower whose pinnacle reaches cloud servers in the sky, and we cannot understand why we feel so lost, so anxious, so angry, so alone. The machinery hums, but the soul of the thing is dead. Society is broken because it is built on a broken covenant. It has exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man (Romans 1:23, ESV).

Some see it. Some with open eyes and unstopped ears look at the polished despair of our age and know, in their bones, that this is not how it was meant to be. They see the cracks in the empire’s façade. Some even understand why it’s broken, they have traced the sickness back to the source, back to the moment we accepted the counterfeit covenant.

This few, this remnant, does the only sane thing left to do. They turn from the noise of the empire and reach out, in the quiet, to the Almighty. They fall on their faces, as Isaiah did, and cry, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips” (Isaiah 6:5, ESV). And they ask the one question that can save a life: “What can I do?”

The answer comes, not in a new program or a fresh political strategy, but as an echo from eternity. It is the same answer given to every generation that has wandered into the empire’s maze: “Go back to the source.”

It’s all been written. It’s all been prophesied. Unlike Adam, unlike the children of Israel in the desert, unlike the kings of Judah, we have the benefit of their errors in writing. We have the entire story, the glorious beginnings, the catastrophic failures, the patient restorations. We have the Law that shows us our sickness. We have the Prophets who diagnosed it. We have the Gospels that offer the cure. We have the letters that explain the recovery. We have the Revelation that shows us how it all ends.

We have the pattern, clear as day, if we would but look. We have the story of Daniel and his friends, youths taken into the very heart of the Babylonian empire. They were given new names, fed the king’s food, taught the empire’s language and literature. Yet “Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king’s food, or with the wine that he drank” (Daniel 1:8, ESV). Their first act of resistance was a quiet, steadfast adherence to the covenantal boundaries of their God. They remembered the source. And God gave them favor and wisdom that outshone all the empire’s wise men.

This is our call. Not to storm the capitols, but to step out of the system’s feast. Not to rage against the machine, but to quietly resolve not to be defiled by it. To remember our true identities and our redeemer. To recover the discarded commands. To relearn the language of covenantal love, the love that shows itself in obedience and seeks guidance in all things.

The empire will rage. It will call you archaic, judgmental, a threat to the new harmony. Let it. You are not a citizen of the empire. You are a redeemed citizen of Yahuah’s Kingdom, a sojourner just passing through. Your allegiance was purchased at a price no empire could ever match. Your law is written on your heart by the Spirit, not on parchment by committees. Your Sabbath is a weekly gift, not just a day on a calendar.

So go back to the source. Read the story again. See the pattern. Hear the call. Let His Word be a lamp to your feet and a light to your path (Psalm 119:105, ESV) through the empire’s gathering darkness. The covenant still stands. The offer of love-for-love remains. The only question is which set of laws will you live by, the Kingdom’s, which lead to life, or the empire’s, which promise everything and deliver dust and lawlessness?

The choice, as it always has been, is ours.

What is the first commandment you feel the empire has most convincingly asked you to forget?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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The Only Constant Episode 028 - Shashue Monrauch

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I sometimes watch and listen to the testimonies of how other walkers of the way come to their understanding of certain truths. I know they are truths because the Holy Spirit has led me to those same ones…the non-negotiables, the bedrock principles of our faith. Yet, I listen to their specific stories, their moments of revelation, their battles and breakthroughs, and their path is so wildly different from the one the Holy Spirit carved for me.

I make this point here because I come across these same truths written by other believers, and the journey they describe…the prayers, the struggles, the specific scriptures that landed like a thunderclap is nothing like my own. Their road to Damascus looked nothing like mine. Their wilderness had different terrain. Their wrestling match with Yahuah used a completely different set of moves.

For a while, this bothered me. Did I miss something? Was my path less valid? Less dramatic? Less… spiritual?

Then it hit me, quiet as a morning whisper: this is the point.

Yahuah knows us better than we know ourselves. He knit us together in our mothers’ wombs. He knows the unique texture of our doubt, the specific shape of our pride, the exact frequency of our fear. So why would He use a one-size-fits-all curriculum to teach us? He is the Master Creative Artist, as I wrote about recently. He doesn’t mass-produce disciples on an assembly line. He hand-crafts each one.

Think of it this way: two students can arrive at the same mathematical truth, say, the Pythagorean theorem. One gets there through geometric proofs, manipulating shapes and angles. The other gets there through algebraic equations, balancing numbers and variables. The destination is identical: a² + b² = c². But the journeys? Completely different. The teacher used different tools because He knew how each student’s mind worked.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you…”

(Jeremiah 1:5, ESV)

He knew you. Intimately. Personally. So His instruction is personal. Your “curriculum” is custom-tailored.

The enemy wants us to believe there’s only one valid spiritual biography: the dramatic conversion on the road, the audible voice in the storm, the instant healing, the prophetic dream sequence. And if your story doesn’t match that template, you start to question its authenticity. This is a lie. It puts God in a box of our own limited imagination.

The truth is, Yahuah will lead you through the valleys He knows you need to walk to kill the specific giants in your heart. He will assign you the battles that will forge the exact strength your calling requires. He will whisper the scriptures that will unravel the particular knots in your soul.

My path to understanding surrender involved caregiving for my mother in silence. Yours might involve public ministry or private loss. My lesson in humility came through hidden financial provision. Yours might come through public failure or quiet success. The truth we both land on “God is sovereign, and my trust must be in Him alone” is the same. The paths to get there are as unique as our fingerprints.

This is why we must never assume that “the way He worked in me” is the only way He works. When we do that, we do two destructive things: First, we judge other believers whose stories don’t mirror ours, creating division where there should be unity in truth. Second, we limit God, reducing His infinite creativity to a single, predictable pattern.

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” (1 Corinthians 12:4-6, ESV)

Varieties. Diversities. Different workings. Same God.

I love reading the testimonies of other faithful servants. I am often awed, sometimes baffled, always encouraged by how God does His “God things.” But I never assume my path and testimony will be or should be identical to the next servant’s.

So, take heart if your journey feels lonely or strange. If your “aha” moments came in the laundry room instead of the church sanctuary. If your most profound healing happened over months of quiet prayer, not in a single shouted command. Your curriculum is yours alone, designed by a Teacher who knows exactly how you learn.

He is painting a masterpiece with billions of individual brushstrokes. You are one of them. Your color, your placement, your texture is unique. But you are part of the same painting. Trust the Artist. He knows what He’s doing with you.

That is all. And thank you for reading.

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A few pieces went out from me these past few weeks. You can find a few of them below. For everything in one place, my site holds the archive.

The Word in the Vineyard

When the Living Truth Arrives, and the Tenants Choose the Curse

The questions that has been buzzing like gnats around me in the summer heat these past few weeks, even months…“What’s next? Where will you go? What will you do?” have settled for a moment. In this stillness, a single word has been echoing, a word I thought I understood but am only now beginning to feel in the marrow of my faith.

Logos.

It’s a word we render as “Word.” In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We read it, we nod, we move on. But I’ve been circling it, this capital-W Word. It is not a spoken sentence or a written command. It is the divine will and intention of Yahuah, Elohim. It is the active, creative, ordering principle of all that is. The Logos is what God means. It is His intent made manifest.

And Yahuah sent His Logos to us. Wrapped in flesh. Bearing the full weight of His divine will. He sent His Son.

This is the story that has been burning in me. It’s the story behind every story, the parable beneath every prophecy. It’s the story of the vineyard. And I think, perhaps, we have missed the terrifying, glorious point.

I. The Owner’s Heart

The parable is simple. Brutally so.

“Hear another parable. There was a master of a house who planted a vineyard and put a fence around it and dug a winepress in it and built a tower and leased it to tenants, and went into another country.” (Matthew 21:33, ESV)

See the Owner’s labor. He doesn’t just find a vineyard; He creates it. He plants. He fences. He digs. He builds. Every provision for abundance, for security, for productivity is His doing. The tenants inherit a finished system, a world already humming with potential. Their job is simple: tend what is His and return to Him the fruit in its season.

Yahua and Yahusha, what they mean to me. Read this 👇🏿👇🏿🙏🏿✝🕊

This is the covenant. This is the relationship. “I have done the work,” says Yahuah. “I have given you everything you need. Live according to my design, and there will be life, blessing, peace.” The terms are not hidden. They are proclaimed from mountains, written on stone, woven into the fabric of a world that sings of its Maker.

The Owner then goes to another country. He grants them agency. Stewardship. He gives them space to choose: will they be faithful tenants, or will they play at ownership?

For a long time, I read this as a story about ancient Israel. It is. But it is also about me. It is about you. The vineyard is your life. Your breath. Your gifts. Your time. This world. He planted it. He put a fence of laws and boundaries around it for our protection. He dug the winepress of consequence, action and reaction. He built the tower of His watchful care. Then He leased it to us. He went into the heavenlies, but He never abdicated ownership.

We are all tenants.

II. The Servants Sent

When the season for fruit drew near, the Owner sent His servants.

“When the season for fruit drew near, he sent his servants to the tenants to get his fruit. And the tenants took his servants and beat one, killed another, and stoned another.” (Matthew 21:34-35, ESV)

These servants are the prophets. They are the living reminders of the covenant, the embodied call to return, to give Yahuah what is His. They speak His Word, His Logos, into the vineyard. “Remember the Owner,” they cry. “Remember the terms of your lease. Your life, your abundance, is not your own. It is a gift, held in trust.”

And what do the tenants do? They beat them. Kill them. Stone them. They reject the message because to accept it is to acknowledge they are not owners. It is to surrender their illusion of control.

For centuries, this was the pattern. The Owner, in His patient, longsuffering mercy, sent more servants. The result was the same. The tenants grew violent in their defiance. The vineyard, designed for sweet wine, began to produce the bitter fruit of rebellion.

Why? Because the Logos, the Word of the Owner, is an inconvenience. It is a claim on their autonomy. It tells them the fruit is not theirs to hoard.

III. The Son: The Logos Made Flesh

Finally, the Owner makes a decisive move. He has one left to send: His beloved Son.

“They will respect my son,” he says. (Matthew 21:37)

He sends the Son, thinking, “Surely, they will see Him and remember. They will see my image in Him and yield.”

But the tenants see the Son and their thinking reveals the core disease of every human heart apart from grace: “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” (Matthew 21:38)

They believe that by eliminating the Heir, the living representation of the Owner’s claim, the vineyard will become theirs. If they can destroy the living Word, the living Will, then they can be free of the claim altogether. The illusion of ownership will become reality.

This is not just a story about first-century Jews and Romans. This is the story of the Logos in every age.

Who is the Son? He is Yahusha the Messiah. But before He was Yahusha of Nazareth, He was the Word.

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1, ESV)

The prophets carried the message of the Word. The Son is the Message. He is the divine will and intention of Yahuah walking on two feet. He is the covenant made flesh. He is the living, breathing claim of God upon His vineyard.

The Scriptures laid out His arrival with meticulous clarity. He was not a surprise.

He was the Servant in whom Yahuah’s soul delights, upon whom His Spirit rests (Isaiah 42:1).

He was the covenant for the people, a light for the nations (Isaiah 42:6).

He was the righteous Branch from David, who would execute justice and righteousness (Jeremiah 23:5).

He was the one anointed to bring good news to the poor, to bind up the brokenhearted (Isaiah 61:1).

He was the prophet like Moses, to whom they must listen, who would speak only the words Yahuah put in His mouth (Deuteronomy 18:15-18).

He was the one like a son of man, given dominion and an everlasting kingdom (Daniel 7:13-14).

Yahuah sent His Son, bearing His divine will and walking with His full authority, because His will was the will of His Father.

“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.’” (John 5:19, ESV)

“For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak.” (John 12:49, ESV)

“My teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.” (John 7:16, ESV)

Yahusha’s every word, every deed, every silent prayer, every touch of healing, was the Logos in action. He was the Owner’s will, incarnate, walking through His own vineyard. He was the living, breathing “This is what I meant.” He was the embodiment of the original design for the vineyard: love, obedience, perfect submission to the Father’s purpose.

He was the true Tenant, showing us how to live in the vineyard as it was meant to be.

IV. The Rejection: Killing the Word

And what did the tenants do?

They took him out of the vineyard and killed him.

They scorned Him. They scoffed. They tortured, humiliated, and murdered Him. Just as the parable foretold.

We look back now, with the benefit of two thousand years of hindsight and eighty-plus books of compiled Scripture, and we ask the rhetorical question: How could they not see? How could they not recognize their Messiah?

We judge them. We cluck our tongues at the chief priests and the Pharisees. We marvel at their blindness.

But I do not judge them. Not anymore.

These things had to happen this way. Not only so that prophecy would be fulfilled, though it was. Not only to provide the spotless Lamb for the sacrifice, though He was.

I believe they happened this way because it was the one means for Yahuah to harvest the Jobs among His creation.

Think of Job. He was tested, refined in the fire of suffering, not because he was wicked, but because he was righteous. His faith was proven genuine, not in comfort, but in calamity. His story is not about why bad things happen to good people; it’s about how true faith survives when every visible reason for faith is stripped away.

The rejection and killing of the Son…the living Logos, was the ultimate test, the final sieve. It separated those who loved the idea of God from those who loved God Himself. It revealed who served the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and who served the god of their own tradition, their own power, their own vineyard.

When the perfect Will of God stood before them, speaking truth, offering life, demanding nothing but their acknowledged dependence, they could not tolerate it. They had to destroy it. Because to accept Him was to die to themselves. It was to admit they were tenants.

Their violent “No” was the necessary backdrop against which every feeble, faithful “Yes” would shine.

The remnant, the seven thousand who had not bowed the knee to Baal, the ones who remained faithful, obedient servants to the end they saw. Perhaps not all at once, not without doubt and fear, but they saw. They were the ones who, when the Heir was cast out and killed, mourned. They were the ones who, after the resurrection, believed. They were the ones who finally understood: the vineyard was never theirs. Their hope was never in their tenure, but in the mercy of the Owner and the faithfulness of the Son.

The Kingdom was taken from the wicked tenants and given to “a people producing its fruits” (Matthew 21:43). That people is not defined by ethnicity, but by faith. By their recognition of the Son and their willingness to give the Father His fruit.

V. The Remnant and the Narrow Path

This brings me to the haunting, sobering math of grace.

We are told that today, roughly 33% of the world’s population…about 2.4 billion people self-identifies as Christian. Is this the remnant? Is one, third of humanity the “few” who find the narrow gate?

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” (Matthew 7:13-14, ESV)

A third of the planet is not “few.” A third of the planet is a multitude. The remnant, by its very definition, is a surviving fraction. A small group preserved after judgment.

I am coming to a painful, personal realization: the remnant is much, much smaller than 33%. The 2.4 billion includes every denomination, every cultural Christian, every person who checks a box on a form. It includes those who love the benefits of the vineyard, the sense of community, the moral framework, the cultural identity, but who have never bowed the knee to the Heir. Who have never surrendered their claim to the inheritance.

The remnant are those who, like Job, love Yahuah for who He is, not for what He gives. They are the ones who treat the Son, Yahusha, “with praise, honor, glory and gratitude, because He endured what He did so that we would have a template, an example of how we ought to walk in alignment with the divine will and intention of the Father.”

They are the ones who understand that the Logos is not a doctrine to be debated, but a life to be lived. A will to be obeyed.

So, how do we become part of that remnant? Not how do we identify as part of it, but how do we become it?

The answer is in the parable. It’s in the example of the Son.

1. Recognize the Heir. We must see Yahusha for who He truly is: not just a wise teacher, not just a moral example, but the living Logos of God. The exact representation of the Father’s will. The rightful Owner of the vineyard of our lives. This starts with a personal relationship, not a religious affiliation. “Do you know me?” He asks. “If you knew me, you would know my Father also.” (John 8:19).

2. Give Up the Illusion of Ownership. This is the daily death. We must crucify the tenant’s mentality that says, “This is my life, my time, my money, my plan.” We must say, daily, “I am a steward. This vineyard belongs to You. What fruit do You want from it today?” This is the prayer that answers every anxious “What’s next?” with “I will go where and when the Father asks.”

3. Guard the Gateways. How can we hear the Shepherd’s voice if our souls are flooded with the world’s noise? The Logos speaks in a “still, small voice.” We must guard what enters our eyes and ears. We must create the quiet space to be still and know that He is God. The enemy is also spiritual, and his primary tactic is not to make us wicked, but to make us distracted. Too busy to listen, too preoccupied to obey.

4. Obey in the Small Things. The Logos did not come with a thunderclap of radical demands for everyone. He started with small obediences. “Follow me.” “Give her a drink.” “Go show yourself to the priest.” Our boot camp with the Holy Spirit often begins here, in the seemingly insignificant nudges. The call to be kind when we want to be sharp. The urge to pray for a stranger. The discipline of turning off the screen and picking up the Word. These small “yeses” train our ears to hear and our wills to align.

5. Forgive as We Have Been Forgiven. The unforgiving servant is the ultimate wicked tenant. He accepts the master’s forgiveness of an unimaginable debt but then claims the right to exact payment on a petty debt owed to him. Holding onto grievances is a declaration of ownership. It says, “This justice is mine to administer.” To forgive is to acknowledge, “I am a tenant who has been forgiven much. I have no right to withhold what I have freely received.”

6. Seek the Fruit, Not the Inheritance. The wicked tenants wanted the inheritance, the vineyard itself, the stuff, the security, the autonomy. The faithful tenant seeks only to produce the fruit the Owner desires: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Our goal is not to own the field, but to please the Farmer.

VI. The Vineyard After the Storm

The parable ends with a question and an answer. Yahusha asks the chief priests, “When therefore the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?”

They reply, correctly, “He will put those wretches to a miserable death and let out the vineyard to other tenants who will give him the fruits in their seasons.” (Matthew 21:40-41)

They pronounced their own judgment.

The Kingdom was taken from them and given to a people producing its fruits.

Where does that leave us? Here, today, in our own lives filled with questions and distractions?

We are the “other tenants.” We have been given the vineyard after the storm of rejection. The Heir was killed, but He will return. The Owner has entrusted His vineyard to a new generation of stewards. Us.

Our test is the same. The Logos is still here, it is in you and me. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and His Spirit now dwells within us. The divine will and intention of Yahuah is not a distant concept; it is a living being, the Holy Spirit, His Helper to guide us into all truth.

Every day, the Owner sends His Spirit to collect His fruit. Every day, we have a choice: do we beat, ignore, or kill the prompting? Or do we recognize the Heir in it and yield?

When the Spirit nudges you to forgive, that is the Logos asking for His fruit of peace.

When He prompts you to turn off the noise and pray, that is the Logos asking for His fruit of faithfulness.

When He convicts you of a long-held sin, that is the Logos asking for His fruit of repentance.

When He places a stranger in your path, that is the Logos asking for His fruit of kindness.

The remnant is not those who can recite doctrine. It is those whose lives are yielded to the will of the Father Most High, Yahuah. Those who, like the Son, can say, “I do nothing on my own authority… I always do the things that are pleasing to him.” (John 8:28-29).

The gate is narrow. The way is hard. Those who find it are few. But it is found not in a theological head-count, but in a surrendered heart. It is found in the quiet, daily, often unseen choice to be a faithful tenant in a world of wicked ones.

So today, as the world grinds back to its empire-building, as the questions about your future buzz around your head, remember:

You are a tenant. The Son is the Heir. The Logos is the rule of the house.

Your only job is to recognize Him when He comes, and to give the Father His fruit.

The rest is just noise.

Walk in that truth today, friends.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

From The Archives

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A prayer for this morning to help us get our week started.

Thought I’d share with you all too.

Our Father in heaven,
Hallowed, set apart, utterly holy is Your name.
Your kingdom come.
Your will be done.
Here, in this place, in this dust, as it is done in the unshadowed light where You reign.

Give us this day our daily bread, the physical, the spiritual, the breath in our lungs, the peace in our moments. And forgive us our trespasses, our debts, our rebellions large and small, as we consciously, deliberately, joyfully, forgive those who have trespassed against us.

Lead our steps away from the testing ground.

Deliver us from the presence, the very proximity, of evil.
For Yours is the kingdom, the power, and the glory. Forever.

Father, we come with a heart full of simple thanks.
Thank you for our families. For the love that holds us, flawed as we are.
Thank you for my dog, Wiggles, a silent, loyal witness to this walk, a reminder of steadfast companionship.

Thank you for the faithful village of supportive brothers and sisters in Christ, both locally and in your digital spaces, walking this walk of obedience.

Thank you for the daily provisions that arrive, seen and unseen. For the peace of this past weekend, for the communion around a table, for the steaks that were more than meat, they were a gift of savor and satisfaction. They were delicious.
Thank you for this morning’s quiet. For the solitude that is not emptiness, but a vessel for Your presence. For the stillness that allows us to hear.

Now, as this new week dawns, we ask for a clean heart.
Create in me a clean heart, O God (Psalm 51:10).
Wipe from it anything not born of You…any residue of resentment, any hidden pride, any anxious noise. Grant us a clarity of mind so sharp it cuts through the fog of our own thoughts. Let us be a vessel, clean, empty of self, ready to be filled and poured out for Your will alone. In all that we say, in all that we do, let it be You speaking, You acting through us.

By Your grace, that unearned, relentless favor and by Your faithfulness, that never-failing promise, help us to walk as Yahusha walked. To speak as He spoke. Let our will dissolve into Yours, so completely that they are one. “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper… He dwells with you and will be in you” (John 14:15-17, ESV). Let Your Spirit be our only alignment.

Father, forgive us.
Forgive our past transgressions. The acts of intentional rebellion, the clenched fist against Your way. And forgive, too, the sins born from our ignorance, the harm done because we did not know, because we did not see. Reveal them to us. Shine Your light into every darkened corner of our soul, that we may see, repent, and turn. We desire to be a more holy representative of Your kingdom here on this earth. A bearer of the light, not a dimmer of it.

we ask all of this in the great, the mighty, the only name given under heaven by which we must be saved: the name of the Messiah, Yahusha.
Amen.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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Shashue Monrauch

This one is long. If you’re short on time, save it. Come back when the world has quieted down. I confess, I wrote this a while ago. I hesitated to publish it, suspecting some might find it offensive. I prayed. I meditated. The message within comes from a place of peace, grace, and obedience. It’s time.

Before I begin, let me remind you: I know nothing. I’m not a pastor, preacher, or leader. You won’t find seminary credentials on my wall. I’m just a guy on the internet who writes about Christians, to Christians, and the things I see taking place in this world. Whatever you read here, pray on it. Speak to the Most High about it. Accept what the Holy Spirit guides you to as truth.

When I first began this walk, I kept stumbling over a word in Scripture: remnant. It appeared with weight, a solemn gravity. I had to look it up.

The biblical remnant isn’t a majority. It’s a small, surviving group who remain faithful to Yahuah after judgment, exile, or widespread spiritual decline. They are the preserved few, kept by God’s grace for His covenant purposes.

“And Isaiah cries out concerning Israel: ‘Though the number of the sons of Israel be as the sand of the sea, only a remnant of them will be saved.’” (Romans 9:27, ESV)

They are survivors of judgment, a faithful minority amidst apostasy, a hope-filled promise, and ultimately, they find their fulfillment in Yahusha the Messiah. To be part of the remnant is to be part of the narrow path. The broad way leads to destruction.

My early impression was simple: the remnant is a small minority. But then my mind, trained by this world, rebelled with a practical question: Why? Why would Yahuah, the Creator of a world with over 8 billion souls, design a plan where only a tiny fraction enters His renewed heaven on earth? It seemed at odds with a God of love.

So I looked at the numbers. The data says about 2.4 billion people, roughly 31-33% of the global population self-identify as Christian. That’s the largest religious group on the planet. Nations like the United States (213 million), Brazil (181 million), and Mexico (112 million) top the lists. By percentage, places like Vatican City (100%), Moldova (99.6%), and Timor-Leste (99.5%) are the “most Christian” nations.

I stared at those numbers. One-third of humanity. My initial, fleshly reaction was relief. Surely the remnant can’t be that small if a third of the world is in the club. That’s over two billion people. That’s a crowd, not a remnant.

But a quiet voice, the one that has been schooling me for nearly two years now, whispered: Look deeper.

Here I am, almost two years into this walk, and I understand something I didn’t before. That 33%, those 2.4 billion…almost certainly do not represent the remnant. Some within that number are, yes. But most? I suspect most are not. And many who are part of the remnant likely don’t even know that’s what they’re called. They aren’t looking for the label; they’re looking for the Father.

The remnant is not a demographic. It’s not a denominational affiliation. It’s not a box checked on a survey.

So, the pressing questions arrive, not as academic curiosities, but as personal, urgent whispers in the night:

Are you the remnant?

How do you become part of it?

If you’ve been reading my work for a while, you probably know the direction of my answer. But my understanding today is clearer, sharper.

It begins with a relationship. Not a religion. Not a tradition. A relationship.

• Do you have a personal relationship with the Father, Yahuah?

• Do you pray to Him in the name of His only begotten Son, Yahusha the Messiah?

• Are you obedient to His commandments? Do you comply with them?

The remnant obeys not out of fear of punishment, but because they love Him. Yahusha was clear:

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15, ESV)

Obedience is the evidence of love. It’s the fruit of a connected, vibrant relationship. It’s the “yes” whispered back to the still, small voice.

This is where the modern world wages its most effective war. Our culture is engineered for noise. For distraction. For overwhelm. It is a system meticulously designed to drown out the one voice that matters with a cacophony of fear, confusion, and shiny trinkets. Every screen, every headline, every algorithm is tuned to pull our focus from the will of our Father, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

This is why I’ve written so often about guarding your gateways.

Your gateways are the inputs to your soul: your eyes and your ears. What you watch. What you listen to. What you read. What voices you let speak into your spirit.

A new layer of this revelation recently settled on me: Unguarded gateways don’t just let in “bad” things. They create noise. And where there is noise and confusion, it becomes nearly impossible to hear what the Father is placing on your heart. You can’t discern the Shepherd’s voice in a stadium.

This connects directly to the other phrase I come back to: being still with the Lord.

Being still isn’t just a nice spiritual practice. It’s a tactical necessity for survival in these times. It is the active, deliberate creation of quiet space to silence the world’s static so you can perceive God’s gentle nudges.

What does He place on our hearts? Rarely, at first, is it “radical life-disrupting direction.” He knows us better than we know ourselves. He didn’t start Abraham’s journey by asking for Isaac. He started with “leave your country.” He starts with the small things. The seemingly insignificant.

• Talk to that stranger.

• Turn off that show.

• Forgive that old hurt.

• Be patient with your child.

• Give away that thing you’re clinging to.

Small obediences. Small trusts. These are the reps that build the muscle of faith. They are how we learn to recognize His voice. Because the enemy is also spiritual. Just because something feels “spiritual” doesn’t mean it’s from the Father Most High. Discernment is built in the quiet, through obedience in the small things.

So, the question for this season, the one that has been the theme of my meditations and prayers, is not some grand, mystical calling.

What is the small thing Yahuah is asking of you right now?

Look at your life. Your practices.

• What traditions do you participate in that aren’t defined or referenced in your Bible?

• What traditions do you uphold that are directly contradictory to what pleases Yahuah?

• Is your faith composed of man-made systems, religious protocols, and inherited rituals… or is it built on the bedrock of relationship and obedience?

• Can you hear the voice of your Shepherd when He commands you?

This brings me to one of the heaviest, most common blockades I see: Unforgiveness.

We pray, “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Then we hold onto our grievances like prized possessions. We become the unforgiving servant in Yahusha’s parable (Matthew 18:21-35), who, though forgiven an unimaginable debt, refuses to forgive a paltry sum owed to him. That hardness of heart is a major block in our relationship with God. You cannot walk in the freedom of the remnant while chained to the ledger of others’ offenses.

Becoming the remnant in this age isn’t about joining the right group or having the correct theology memorized. It’s a daily, hourly choice.

It is guarding your gateways to kill the noise.

It is being still to hear His voice.

It is obeying in the small things to train for the larger callings.

It is forgiving, because you have been forgiven much.

It is keeping your focus relentlessly on Yahuah.

It is giving thanks regularly to Yahusha for the staggering, unearned gift of redemption…a chance to be seen as righteous in the eyes of the Father.

The statistics say 2.4 billion Christians. The Scripture whispers of a remnant. The difference between the two is the distance between a label worn and a life lived. Between a identity claimed and a covenant obeyed.

The path is narrow. The gate is small. The company is few. But the Shepherd’s voice is clear for those who have quieted the world to listen.

That is all. And thank you for reading.

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Shashue Monrauch

I haven’t shared much this week. It’s not for lack of writing, but because the Lord hasn’t released the word yet. For those who’ve walked this path with me, you know this rhythm: I share only when my Father in Heaven says, “Now.” Some seasons bring a daily flow; others, a single word per week. There’s a time to speak, a…

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There’s a shift that happens when you start walking in the Spirit. It’s not always a thunderclap. Sometimes, it’s just learning to walk slower.

When I first moved down here, my goal was simple: avoid people. My walks with Wiggles were strategic missions of solitude. Midnight loops around the block. Predawn treks on the beach, ensuring the only footprints were ours. It was just me, my thoughts, and the dog. I told myself it was for peace, for prayer, for clarity. And it was, partly. But mostly, it was for control. My comfort was the compass.

I’m not sure exactly when the pivot began. Maybe it was the Spirit’s gentle nudging against my self-built walls. But slowly, the walks changed. The hours shifted. The route diversified. And people…actual, specific people began to emerge from the blur of the background.

The homeless mother and son by the bus stop. The guy at the smoke shop, weary-eyed from a long night. The mechanics at the auto repair shop, breathing deep sighs as they navigate other people’s bad days. The family running the Avis counter, juggling paperwork and patience. The old woman who lights up at the sight of Wiggles, telling me about the Great Danes she used to have, forgetting she told me the same story yesterday. The neighbor on the corner who never fails to step out and ask, “She’s such a nice dog, what is her name?” every single time.

These aren’t random encounters anymore. They are appointments.

This, I’m learning, is a practical way to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). The “flesh” in this case was my desire for isolation, for frictionless existence, for a world that didn’t intrude on my inner monologue. The Spirit’s path is different. It’s relational. It’s interruptible.

Walking in the Spirit means slowing your pace enough to see the image of Yahuah in the person right in front of you. It means trading efficiency for empathy. It’s letting your prayer time become less about your list and more about their name, the mother’s anxiety, the mechanic’s frustration, the old woman’s loneliness.

Paul writes about the fruit of this walk: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). I used to think of these as inward virtues to cultivate in quiet. Now I see them as currencies to spend in the street. Patience is listening to the same dog story for the tenth time. Kindness is remembering the mechanic’s name. Love is seeing the person, not the problem.

This isn’t natural for me. My default is still the silent stare. But the command is clear: “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others” (Philippians 2:3-4). Humility, as C.S. Lewis noted, isn’t thinking less of yourself; it’s thinking of yourself less.

So now, I watch. I listen. And sometimes, guided by a nudge I can’t explain, a word is given. A simple encouragement. A “thank you for what you do.” A “I’ll pray for your son.” Sometimes it lands right then, a pause, a softening in the shoulders, a look of genuine surprise. Other times, days later, they’ll repeat my own words back to me, a sign the seed was received.

This is the Golden Rule in motion: “So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them” (Matthew 7:12). It’s recognizing that what we do for others, these small, intentional acts of seeing…carries more weight in heaven than any solitary pursuit of personal comfort ever could.

My walks are no longer just exercise. They are reconnaissance missions for the kingdom. Each face is a story. Each name is a prayer. Each brief connection is a stitch in the fabric of a community I’m finally letting myself belong to.

The fruit isn’t in the dramatic gesture. It’s in the slowed-down step, the remembered name, the shared moment of grace on a hot sidewalk. This is keeping in step with the Spirit. One person at a time.

That is all. And thank you for reading.

If you enjoy Faith In The Fast Lane, I would be incredibly grateful for your support. Consider using one or more of the links below.

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Shashue Monrauch

Today’s article starts in a place that might feel different. For a moment, it might seem like it’s about me. If you think on it, my messages here have never really been about me; they’ve been about what Yahuah, the Father Most High, is doing in, through, and around me. I ask for your patience. Stay with me until the end. You’ll see it is still about Him.

For those whom have been walking this path with me for a while, you know this story. But there are many new faces here now, so I’ll recap.

Yahuah revealed Himself to me on the night of October 3rd, 2024. It was a kairos moment…a divine puncture in time. For months after, I was a closeted Christian. My internal world had been upended, my heart was undergoing surgery by an unseen hand, but externally, I played the same part. I didn’t want my family, my friends, my social circle to know. I didn’t want to become one of those “#$%&*” I had silently judged for most of my life.

So I carried on in secret. Just me, a Bible, and prayers muttered in the dark. My family thought my distance was due to the all-consuming care for my ailing mother. Thankfully, they gave me space. God used that space to build a foundation in silence.

Then, a few months in, He instructed me to step out of the closet. It was time. And when I did, the people around me began to notice the fingerprints of transformation. The drinking stopped. The pot vanished from my life. My vocabulary, once salted with the speech of a sailor, was rinsed clean. Compulsive behaviors I’d wrestled with for decades slipped away, some instantly, others gradually. The change wasn’t my project. It was His evidence.

One of the first lessons He taught me was to recognize His work, not mine. I joined faith communities, both digital and physical. And He showed me something beautiful and humbling: my daily provisions began to arrive through the people around me. Some were believers, fellow walkers of The Way. Many were not. God showed me how He fulfills His will through His creations, whether those creations know they are serving the Creator or are actively denying His existence.

That season was a masterclass in humility. God was rewarding me for being humble, a characteristic I would never, in a million years, have attributed to myself. My help came from places and people I had previously judged, dismissed, or looked down upon. He was breaking me of my pride, showing me that His economy of grace operates through channels I would never have chosen.

But that’s not what this article is about.

This is about what it means to be a creative Artist. And I’m not talking about us.

Think of a benefactor who commissions five different artists to paint a sunrise over the high desert of Nevada. All five look at the same sky, the same moment. Yet the benefactor receives five completely different paintings. Each is a unique interpretation, a singular vision filtered through a unique soul.

That’s impressive. But it’s human.

Yahuah is not a human artist. He is the sovereign, Master Creator. When He executes His will, He does so in a way that leaves no room for our boasting. As it is written:

“For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9, ESV)

He doesn’t just want to bless us; He wants us to know the blessing is from Him. It’s by His power and might, not our speed, wisdom, or foresight. In my life, He has done things in ways I could never take credit for. The path was so unmistakably His that all I could do was stand in awe.

But here’s the thing that continues to awe and marvel me, even now: The way Yahuah uses a multitude of His creations to accomplish a single, perfect will.

Go back to our benefactor. This time, he commissions one painting of that Nevada sunrise. But he doesn’t hire one artist. He hires five. Five different painters, with different styles, different brushes, different palettes, all working on the same canvas. They collaborate, blend, and layer their contributions until the work is complete. The resulting painting isn’t just a sunrise; it’s a masterpiece of unified diversity, more profound and beautiful than any one artist could have created alone.

That is how I have witnessed Yahuah work for almost two years now.

He invites me into a space, a situation, a conversation, a need. Often, He instructs me, “Be still. Watch.” And I do. I watch as He moves through an entire room, an entire body of people. One person speaks a word of knowledge. Another offers a gift. Another prays. Another provides a practical solution. Another simply listens with the love of the Messiah. Sometimes He tells me in advance what He’s about to do. Other times, I don’t see the picture until the final brushstroke is placed.

He is the master Artist, and we are His brushes, His paints. The masterpiece is His will.

So why? Why does God prefer to work through the entire body? Why not just tell me to go for a walk and find a bag of cash to cover the bills? That would be efficient. Clean. It would allow me to stay in my isolated bubble, away from the beautiful, frustrating, messy chaos of “people.” And I’ll be honest: as a man of few words, that’s my preference. My social battery has a low capacity. My ideal weekend involves my dog Wiggles and a silent forest, not a crowd.

But here’s my theory, born from watching Him work:

We flawed humans often think everything God does is for us. But He is the God Most High. He is everyone’s God, whether they acknowledge Him or not. When He carries out His will through an entire body, He isn’t just doing one thing for one person. He is orchestrating a single, divine action that generates multiple, overlapping blessings for multiple children simultaneously.

It’s His way of “flexing.” It’s a window for us to witness a small measure of His ultimate sovereignty. It displays His wisdom:

“So that through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.” (Ephesians 3:10, ESV)

The “manifold” wisdom, poly poikilos in Greek, means variegated, multi-colored, intricately diverse. It’s the wisdom displayed in a tapestry, not a single thread.

Consider the early church:

“Now the full number of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one said that any of the things that belonged to him was his own, but they had everything in common.” (Acts 4:32, ESV)

A need arose, and it was met not by a solitary miracle from the sky, but through the shared resources and unified heart of the body. The blessing rippled out, strengthening all.

It’s harder for five artists to create one unified masterpiece than five separate ones. It requires submission. It requires dying to your individual vision for the sake of the greater work. It requires trusting the Master Artist.

That’s the point.

God is as interested in the process as He is in the provision. He is building His Body, the Body of the Messiah:

“For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… The eye cannot say to the hand, ‘I have no need of you,’ nor again the head to the feet, ‘I have no need of you.’” (1 Corinthians 12:12, 21, ESV)

My desire for solitary, clean provision is a desire to be an entire body unto myself. It’s a quiet rebellion against interdependence. But God’s design is communal. His glory is most fully revealed not in the lone prophet on a mountain, but in the unified, messy, beautiful, and often frustrating assembly of saints serving one another.

When He asks you to go somewhere or say something that seems irrational to you, it’s rarely just about you. You are being positioned as one brushstroke in a larger painting. Your obedience might be the dash of color that makes sense of another person’s struggle. Your presence might be the answer to a prayer you never heard.

Your isolation is a poverty. His community is the wealth.

So, why write about this now? Because I am learning, in real time, to surrender my preference for the quiet, self-sufficient path. My mother loved to talk. In her last years, God took her voice. She saw it as a curse. A part of me saw it as a gift…a terrible, honest confession. It would have been a gift for me. No more awkward conversations. Just silence.

But God didn’t call me to silence. He called me into the noisy, beautiful, inconvenient Body. He calls all of us. Our obedience in the small things, the phone call, the errand, the listening ear, the inconvenient “yes”…is how He paints His masterpieces. Our willingness to be one color on a shared canvas is how His manifold wisdom is displayed.

He speaks. His Word never returns empty. And the most effective way for that Word to achieve its purpose is through His entire Body, not just a single member.

That is all. And thank you for reading.

From the Archives

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The world operates on a simple, brutal math. First in line gets the prize. The broad road is the safe road. Trust what you see, know what you know. This is the logic of empires, of markets, of human pride. It is a logic so ingrained we mistake it for truth itself.

But Yahuah, the Master of the vineyard, operates by a different arithmetic. His kingdom inverts our world. His metrics scandalize our sense of fairness. His path is not paved by consensus but carved by obedience. And standing in opposition to it all is a master deceiver who has woven his lies into the very fabric of our understanding, making the broad road feel like home and the narrow gate feel like folly.

This is the story of that inversion. It is the story of the first who will be last, the narrow gate few will find, and the depthless deception that makes finding it at all a miracle of grace.

The Scandal of the Eleventh Hour: When the Last Are First

You know the story. A master goes out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. He agrees with them on the standard wage, a denarius for a day’s work. They go. He goes out again at nine, at noon, at three. Each time, he finds more idle men and sends them into his vineyard, promising to pay “whatever is right.” Finally, at five o’clock…the eleventh hour, with only sixty minutes of daylight left, he finds still more men standing around. “Why do you stand here idle all day?” he asks. They reply, “Because no one has hired us.” He tells them, “You go into the vineyard too.”

Evening comes. The foreman is told to pay, beginning with the last hired. The men who worked one hour receive a full denarius. Seeing this, the ones who bore the burden of the day and the scorching heat assume they will get more. But they, too, receive a single denarius.

They grumble. “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.”

The master’s reply is a thunderclap of divine economics: “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?” (Matthew 20:1-15, ESV).

Yahusha concludes: “So the last will be first, and the first last.”

This parable isn’t about labor law. It’s about the kingdom of heaven. And it offends every human instinct for fair exchange. We are the workers who clocked in at dawn. We have built our identity on our toil, our early arrival, our doctrinal precision, our long history of service. We look at the one who stumbled in at the eleventh hour, the deathbed convert, the prodigal who wasted his inheritance, the sinner who never darkened a church door, and we grumble. We did the work. We sweated. We stayed pure. We built this. And you’re making them equal to us?

The scandal is that in Yahuah’s vineyard, the wage is not earned; it is bestowed. The denarius is not a payment for labor; it is the gift of inheritance, of salvation, of inclusion in the kingdom. It is grace, period. The master’s generosity is not bound by our ledgers. His goodness is not distributed by our stopwatch.

This principle explodes our religious hierarchies. It means the thief on the cross, with minutes left in his life, enters paradise alongside the disciple who followed for three years. It means the brother you wrote off as hopeless might receive the same full measure of the Father’s love as you. It means your decades of faithful service, while precious to Him, do not put you first in line for a greater reward. They were a privilege. The reward is His to give as He pleases.

This is why the largest religious group on the planet, identifying as Christian, cannot be assumed to be the “first.” If the kingdom belongs to the poor in spirit, the meek, the persecuted, then the boasting of numbers, the pride of position, the comfort of cultural Christianity may very well place us last. The first…those who assume their primacy by pedigree or effort, will be shocked to find others ahead of them in the line for the Master’s embrace. The last, the outcasts, the latecomers, the desperate who know they deserve nothing, will be ushered to the front.

It is a warning against spiritual pride and a comfort to the weary who feel they’ve arrived too late. The Master’s call can come at dawn or at dusk. Your response, whenever it comes, is met with the same lavish, unmerited generosity.

The Narrow Gate: Few Find It, Many Fake It

If the first-last principle upends our ranking, the narrow gate shatters our assumptions about the crowd. Yahusha could not be clearer: “Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few” (Matthew 7:13-14, ESV).

Few. Not a plurality. Not a simple majority. Few.

This math is incompatible with a world where 2.4 billion people call themselves Christian. It is incompatible with a faith that has become a cultural default, a political identity, or a family tradition. The narrow way is not a demographic. It is a condition of the heart.

The path is narrow because it has only one requirement: total, surrendered allegiance to the King. It is the path of the cross, of dying to self. It is hard because it goes against our every instinct for self-preservation, self-promotion, and self-righteousness. It is the path of taking up your torture stake daily and following Him, wherever He leads, no matter the cost.

The broad way, in contrast, is easy. It accommodates. It is wide enough for your politics, your pride, your pet sins, and your cultural Christianity. It is the path of “Lord, Lord,” without obedience. It is the road traveled by the many.

And here is the most terrifying warning: you can be on the broad road while convinced you are on the narrow one. You can be heading for destruction while prophesying in His name. “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,” Yahusha says, “but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21-23, ESV).

I never knew you.

The defining factor is not activity, but intimacy. Not mighty works, but a known relationship. The narrow path is not a list of achievements; it is the walk of a child who knows the Father’s voice and obeys. The broad path is littered with the wreckage of impressive religious careers that were built on a foundation of self.

This is why we must “strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able” (Luke 13:24, ESV). Strive. Agonize. Wrestle. It is a fight against your own flesh, against the gravitational pull of the broad way, against the devil’s illusions that make the wide gate look like the only sane choice.

When the door is shut, proximity will not save you. “We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets,” they will plead (Luke 13:26). But sitting in a church, hearing the word, enjoying fellowship, these are not the same as walking the narrow way of costly obedience. You can know all about Him and still not be known by Him.

The narrow gate is the person of Yahusha Ha’Mashiach. He said, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved” (John 10:9, ESV). The way is hard because it is Him, His humility, His suffering, His rejection, His cross. Few want that. Many want the benefits without the Bridegroom. But the gate is not a doctrine; it is a Person. And He is narrow in that there is no other name under heaven by which we must be saved.

The Depths of Deception: Why Leaning on Your Own Understanding is Folly

If the gate is narrow and the true path walked by few, what explains the masses on the broad road? Why do so many sincere, intelligent, well-meaning people miss it? The answer is the third point: the depths of Satan’s deception.

He is the father of lies. His native language is falsehood (John 8:44). He is not a cartoon villain twirling a mustache; he is a brilliant strategist who paints the broad road to look like the narrow one and makes the narrow gate appear foolish, bigoted, or insane. He doesn’t just tell a lie; he builds a world.

Look at the Parable of the Wicked Tenants. The Master (Yahuah) plants a vineyard (Israel/the world), leases it to tenants (humanity/religious leaders), and goes away. He sends servants (the prophets) to collect His fruit. The tenants beat, kill, and stone them. Finally, He sends His Son (Yahusha), saying, “They will respect my son.” But the tenants see the Son and say, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.” So they throw him out of the vineyard and kill him (Matthew 21:33-39).

This is the pattern: rejection of the Father’s authority, violence toward His messengers, and the ultimate crime, murdering the Heir to seize the inheritance for themselves. The tenants believed the vineyard could be theirs. They believed their claim to it was stronger than the Owner’s. This is the core deception: that we can be owners instead of stewards. That this world, our lives, our identities, are ours to control and dispense.

We see this played out in Pilate’s courtyard. Yahuah sent His Son. And the crowd, stirred by the religious leaders, the very tenants of the vineyard, was given a choice. Barabbas, a violent rebel, or Yahusha, the Prince of Peace. They chose Barabbas. They shouted, “Crucify him!” And when Pilate washed his hands, they declared, “His blood be on us and on our children!” (Matthew 27:15-26). They chose the way of the rebel over the way of the Son. They invoked a curse upon themselves, a curse that would see them scattered to the ends of the earth, a byword among nations.

This is the fruit of deception. It leads you to choose death and call it justice. To choose bondage and call it freedom. To crucify the Truth and celebrate a murderer.

And Satan’s operation did not end at Calvary. If he is bound for a thousand years in the prophetic timeline, a period I once strongly suspected we were in, a “little season” of final, unrestrained deception (Revelation 20:1-3), then his strategy is clear. He has infiltrated everything.

As I’ve written before, he has infiltrated every major institution: education, religion, government, media, food, medicine. He is the unseen architect of our “knowledge.” He has scrambled the map. Dates, names, historical narratives, all have been altered, edited, and weaponized. The “smartest among us,” the ones with placards and degrees, are often debating within a framework he designed. They are like two sides of a stage, arguing passionately, both unaware the playwright is the father of lies.

This is why “lean not on your own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5) is not a suggestion; it is a survival imperative. Your own understanding has been educated, formed, and conditioned by systems he influences. Your rationale, your “common sense,” is often common deception. The Greek philosophers debated the nature of reality; today’s academics debate gender, history, and justice. Both are often intellectual exercises within a sandbox whose walls Satan built.

I spent decades thinking I knew which way was up. I read the books. I consumed the “educational” content. I had a framework. And by the grace of Yahuah, He allowed that framework to shatter. It was depressing, at first. To realize your entire understanding is based on corrupted data is to feel unmoored. But it was also the beginning of hope. Because it forced me to a simple, desperate conclusion: I know nothing.

And that is the only safe place to be.

From that place of knowing nothing, you can begin to listen. Not to the cacophony of the deceived and the deceivers, but to the only source of uncorrupted truth: the Holy Spirit, speaking through the Word of Yahuah. He must be your guide. Not a pastor, not a denomination, not a political party, not a conspiracy theory, not your own brilliant deduction. Him. Alone.

Satan’s deception is so deep that the only way to know you are on the narrow path is to be led step-by-step by the Spirit. Your own mind will betray you. Your education will mislead you. Your pride will blind you. The broad way is paved with good intentions, brilliant arguments, and sincere convictions that are just sincere enough to be damning.

This is the great sifting. It is why the path is narrow and few find it. It is not because Yahuah hides it. It is because the enemy has constructed a convincing, attractive, well-signed replica right next to it, and most of the world, including most of religious world, is on it.

The Vineyard After the Storm: A Conclusion of Hope

So where does this leave us? With three terrifying, liberating truths.

First, your seniority, your pedigree, your labor in the heat of the day does not entitle you to a greater share of grace. The first will be last. Let this kill every seed of spiritual comparison and pride. Serve faithfully, but serve in awe of a Master who is generous to the latecomer. Rejoice when He is generous to them, for you are dependent on that same generosity.

Second, the way is narrow. You cannot assume you are on it because you are in the majority, or because your theology is correct, or because you are busy in ministry. You are on it only if you are known by Him and know Him. This requires daily death. Daily striving. Daily checking your bearings not against the crowd, but against the plumb line of Scripture and the quiet confirmation of the Spirit. Assume the broad road is the default. Fight to stay on the narrow one.

Third, you cannot navigate this alone. The deception is too deep, the maps are forged. You must lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways, your study, your discernment, your decisions, acknowledge Him. Trust in Yahuah with all your heart. He will make your paths straight (Proverbs 3:5-6). He will guide you through the minefield of lies.

The story does not end with the tenants scattered and the Son dead. Yahuah, for the sake of His holy name, promises restoration. After the curse comes the promise to Ezekiel: “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak… I will rescue my flock; they shall no longer be a prey… I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, Yahuah, will be their God” (Ezekiel 34:16, 22-24, ESV).

The vineyard will be restored. A people will remember their Master. They will call on His name. They will mourn the Son they pierced. And He will heal them. He will break the bars of their yoke. They will dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid (Ezekiel 34:27-28).

This is our hope. We are not smarter than the deception. We are not stronger than the father of lies. But our Shepherd is. The narrow gate is His side. The narrow path is walking behind Him. And His promise is that His sheep hear His voice, and they will not follow a stranger (John 10:5).

Your task today is not to have all the answers. It is not to decode every conspiracy or win every argument. Your task is to be a good tenant. To tend the part of the vineyard He has given you. To give Him the fruit when He asks for it. To welcome the Son when He appears. And to trust that the Master who hires at the eleventh hour, who guards the narrow gate, and who sees through every layer of deception, is also the Shepherd who will leave the ninety-nine to find the one who is lost.

The first will be last. The path is narrow. The deception is bottomless.

But the Shepherd is good. And He knows His sheep.

That is all. And thank you for reading.

Associated Articles

The following articles have a consistent and relatively connected with this one. Be sure to check them out for more context.

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Shashue Monrauch

A story has been shaping on my heart over these past few weeks and this article is but another branch of that story.

Check out the following links as they are but smaller threads of the same story.

So, I think…😳👀

My mind is on a story. Not my story. A much older one. The only story, really. It’s the story of an agreement. A covenant. Between a Master and His tenants. Between Yahuah and the sons of Jacob.

You know the setup. A master plants a vineyard. He puts a fence around it. He digs a winepress. He builds a tower. He does all the work, invests all the capital, prepares the land for abundance. Then He leases it. He goes to another country. The tenants are to tend it. Their job is simple: care for the Master’s property and give Him His fruit when He sends for it.

This is the agreement.

The terms are clear from the beginning. They are not hidden mystery. They are proclaimed from the mountains, written on stone, seared into the fabric of creation itself. Yahuah, the Master, laid it out. “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the LORD your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth.”

This is the Master’s side of the lease. If you obey, if you tend the vineyard according to His instructions, the yield will be miraculous. “Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the field. Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle.” The blessings are comprehensive. They are a tidal wave of goodness. Security. Victory. “The LORD will cause your enemies who rise against you to be defeated before you. They shall come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” Prosperity. “You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.” Honor. “The LORD will establish you as a people holy to himself.”

You will be the head, not the tail. You will only go up, not down. This is the life of a faithful tenant in the Master’s well-planted vineyard. It is a life of peace under the protection of the Owner.

But a lease has two sides. The tenant has responsibilities. The Master is clear: this abundance is contingent on one thing. “If you obey the commandments of the LORD your God, which I command you today, being careful to do them, and if you do not turn aside from any of the words that I command you today, to the right hand or to the left, to go after other gods to serve them.”

There it is. The single, non-negotiable term. Obedience. Exclusive loyalty. No other gods. The vineyard belongs to the Master. You do not get to worship the tools, admire the fence, or bow to the god of the harvest you did not plant. You serve Him. You listen to His voice. You give Him His fruit.

And the Master is not unclear about what happens if you violate the lease. He spells it out in painful, exhaustive detail. It is the curse. It is the eviction notice.

“But if you will not obey the voice of the LORD your God or be careful to do all his commandments and his statutes that I command you today, then all these curses shall come upon you and overtake you.”

The mirror flips. Everything that was a blessing becomes a curse. “Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the field.” The fruit will fail. “Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl.” Your labor will be futile. “You shall carry much seed into the field and shall gather in little, for the locust shall consume it.” You will build a house, but you shall not dwell in it. You will plant a vineyard, but you shall not enjoy its fruit.

Worse follows. Confusion. Madness. Defeat. “The LORD will cause you to be defeated before your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them.” You will become a spectacle. “And you shall be a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples where the LORD will lead you away.”

Then, the ultimate consequence. The scattering. The end of the tenancy on the land. “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other gods of wood and stone, which neither you nor your fathers have known.”

You will be a slave in a foreign land. You will offer yourselves for sale, but there will be no buyer. You will have no rest. “And among these nations you shall find no respite, and there shall be no resting place for the sole of your foot, but the LORD will give you there a trembling heart and failing eyes and a languishing soul. Your life shall hang in doubt before you.”

This was the agreement. Blessing for faithfulness. A comprehensive, terrifying curse for rebellion. The tenants heard it. They agreed to it. They said, “All that Yahuah has spoken we will do.”

And then the Master left for another country.

The story of the sons of Jacob is the story of the wicked tenants.

The Master was patient. Incredibly patient. He freed them from Egypt, a display of power no other god could match. He delivered all their enemies into their hands. He gave them the land, the vineyard, that was promised to their father Jacob. He did it all by His own glory and might. He sent His servants, the prophets, to collect His fruit, to call His people back to the terms of the covenant.

And what did the tenants do?

They beat one. They killed another. They stoned another.

They rejected the servants. They ignored the warnings. They looked at the fertile land, the secure walls, the abundant harvest, and said, “This is ours. We will do with it as we please. Who is this Master to tell us how to live?”

They forgot they were tenants. They began to act like owners. They chased other gods. They embraced the practices of the nations around them. They violated every single term of the lease. They were not careful to do His commandments. They turned aside, to the right and to the left.

And still, the Master was patient. He sent more servants. They treated them the same.

Finally, as the parable tells us, the Master had one last recourse. “They will respect my son,” He said.

He sent His only begotten son. His heir. Yahusha.

The tenants saw the son and said to themselves, “This is the heir. Come, let us kill him and have his inheritance.”

They saw the son not as the rightful representative of the Owner, but as the final obstacle to their claim of ownership. If they could eliminate the heir, they thought, the vineyard would be theirs forever.

We know what they did.

“Now at the feast the governor was accustomed to release for the crowd any one prisoner whom they wanted. And they had then a notorious prisoner called Barabbas.”

Pilate, the representative of the foreign power that now policed the Master’s vineyard, gave them a choice. A gift of grace, even in his confusion. He presented the Son, Yahusha, who is called Christ, and the violent rebel, Barabbas.

The choice was the ultimate test of the tenant’s heart. Who do you want? The Prince of Peace sent by the Owner, or the man of violence and insurrection?

The chief priests and elders persuaded the crowd. They chose Barabbas.

Pilate asked, “Then what shall I do with Jesus who is called Christ?”

They all said, “Let him be crucified!”

Pilate washed his hands. He declared his moral innocence. And the people, the tenants, speaking for the whole nation, accepted the full weight of the deed. They shouted, “His blood be on us and on our children!”

They chose the rebel over the son. They ratified their rejection of the Master’s authority. They invoked a curse upon themselves.

And so the Master acted. He did what He said He would do. The curse, detailed so meticulously in the agreement, began to unfold. It was not a spiteful act. It was the fulfillment of the terms they had agreed to. They had forsaken Him. Therefore, He would forsake them to the consequences.

The siege came. “The LORD will bring a nation against you from far away, from the end of the earth, swooping down like the eagle, a nation whose language you do not understand.” Jerusalem fell. The temple was destroyed. The people were slaughtered or led away in chains.

And then, the scattering. “And the LORD will scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other.”

The vineyard was taken from them.

For two thousand years, the curse has been the lived experience of the sons of Jacob. They were scattered to the four corners of the world. And wherever they went, the terms of the curse followed them. “The sojourner who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, and you shall not lend to him. He shall be the head, and you shall be the tail.”

In every nation, in every empire, they became the lowest class. The perpetually foreign. The perpetually vulnerable. They represented the poor, the servants, the disadvantaged. They were oppressed and robbed continually, and there was no one to help them. Their history was erased and rewritten by their captors. They were given new names, new identities. They no longer knew the names of their own ancestors. They forgot the language of the covenant. They served gods of wood and stone in the lands of their exile, just as the curse had said.

They were a horror, a proverb, and a byword. A people whose very existence was a mystery and a warning. Their life hung in doubt before them. Night and day they were in dread. “In the morning you shall say, ‘If only it were evening!’ and at evening you shall say, ‘If only it were morning!’”

This was the vineyard after the tenants killed the son. Barren. Desolate. The tenants cast out, wandering, with no title to any land, no claim to any inheritance.

But a Master who plants a vineyard does so for a purpose. He desires fruit. The story does not end with the tenants homeless.

The prophets spoke of a time after the storm. After the eviction. Yahuah said through Ezekiel, “I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”

Why? For the sake of the wicked tenants? No. For the sake of His holy name. “It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for the sake of my holy name.” The Master would uphold the honor of His own name. He would remember the promises He swore to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

He promised restoration. “And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. They shall no more be a prey to the nations, nor shall the beasts of the land devour them. They shall dwell securely, and none shall make them afraid.”

He promised a new covenant. A covenant of peace. “I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.” He would be their God, and they would be His people. He would set up one shepherd, His servant David, to feed them. He would be their shepherd.

And the mountains of Israel, left desolate and possessed by the enemy, would hear a new word. “O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD: Because the enemy said of you, ‘Aha!’ and, ‘The ancient heights have become our possession,’ therefore prophesy, and say, Thus says the Lord GOD: Precisely because they made you desolate and crushed you from all sides… therefore, O mountains of Israel, hear the word of the Lord GOD.”

The land itself would be restored for the sake of the people who would return. A people who had finally remembered.

And that is the turn. After much suffering, after the full weight of the curse had done its work of breaking the prideful spirit, the chosen eventually began to remember. Faint echoes at first. A song. A prayer. A name. Yahuah.

In the dust of their exile, they slowly and gradually began to call out to their God. Not to the gods of wood and stone they had served in their captivity, but to the God of the covenant. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. They began to confess. They began to repent. For their idolatry. For their rebellion. For denying and killing His only begotten son.

They looked at the history written by their conquerors and saw the lies. They looked at their own condition, the tail and not the head in every nation, and understood it was the curse. They remembered the terms. They remembered their choice. Barabbas.

And they cried out. From the four corners of the earth, a groan went up. A groan of recognition. A groan of repentance.

And their God began to hear their cries.

He always hears the cry of the contrite. The Master had been waiting. Not with wrath, but with a father’s aching heart. The punishment was complete. The lesson was learned. The tenant finally understood he was a tenant, not an owner. That the vineyard, his life, his identity, belonged to Another.

And Yahuah moved to redeem. Not just the original tenants, the sons of Jacob according to the flesh, but also the grafted branches. The wild olive shoots from every nation that had come to know Yahuah and His son Yahusha, the Messiah, whom their ancestors had condemned to the cross. Both would be brought into one flock under one shepherd.

The Master would return to His vineyard. He would restore the tenants who had finally learned to honor the Son. He would welcome the new tenants who had always honored the Son. He would judge between the sheep, between the fat and the lean, between those who served themselves and those who served Him.

The vineyard after the storm would be more beautiful than before. Because the tenants now knew the cost of rebellion and lawlessness. They knew the mercy of the Master. They knew the worth of the Son, Yahusha the Messiah.

The inheritance would not be seized. It would be given. To the obedient. To the faithful. To those who recognize the Son and give the Father (Yahuah) His fruit.

This is the story. It is not a parable. It is history. It is prophecy. It is the present reality for many, and the future hope for all who will hear.

The agreement stands. The choice remains. Blessing or curse. Life or death.

The Master is still looking for His fruit. The Son stands at the door.

What will the tenants do?

That is all, and thank you for reading.

If you enjoy Faith In The Fast Lane, I would be incredibly grateful for your support. Consider using one or more of the links below.

Leave a comment

Buy us a Coffee

Refer a friend

Subscribe now

Gift or Tip Using Bitcoin

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On X (formerly Twitter) : Shashue Monrauch on X

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On NOSTR:

• Shashue npub1ldn7g28j6rc49gmmyh2yk4z8y688hhuuzgs2v5q2erz784cegshs6427d0

Thanks for your time and support.

Shashue Monrauch

For those of you who have walked this path with me for a while, you know the truth: I am a babe on this walk of The Way. I have no theological degrees on my wall. I don’t speak the language of academia. I speak only to what sounds true to my spirit and what sounds true is only what I can corroborate, line by line, in my reading of the whole Bible.

With that foundation laid, let’s talk about what’s been pressing on my spirit these past weeks.

Yahuah has promised, prophesied with the certainty of a coming dawn, that He will bring His judgment to this world. It will be His day. The Day of the Lord. A day of terror for the wicked and the proud, a day where every hidden thing is uncovered. Yet, woven into that same promise is a thread of fierce protection for His elect, for those who have believed, trusted, and obeyed Him. Not a generalized, sentimental love, but a specific, covenant-keeping shelter for the faithful.

This is the central tension of our age: the wheat and the tares grow together.

“He put another parable before them, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away… Let both grow together until the harvest…’” (Matthew 13:24-30, ESV).

We are deep into the growing together phase. The tares look like wheat when they’re young. It takes maturity, time, and the bearing of fruit, or the lack thereof, to tell them apart.

The enemy’s strategy is not frontal assault; it’s infiltration. He has sown his counterfeit seed into the very institutions meant to nurture the wheat: our churches, our seminaries, our media, our governments. He operates as the father of lies (John 8:44), and his work is a “strong delusion” for those who “did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness” (2 Thessalonians 2:11-12, ESV). This is why I lean on nothing of my own understanding. My own mind is fertile ground for the same deception. My only refuge is to lean wholly on the Father’s understanding, to stay on the path lit by His Spirit, even when that path feels desperately lonely. The loneliness is a refining fire. It burns away the need for the crowd’s approval and leaves only the need for His.

And let’s be clear: many who profess the name of the Lord today are tares. They sit in pulpits, they write best-selling books, they lead ministries, they hold titles of pastor, teacher, elder. Some are witting agents of the enemy, knowing falsehoods and peddling them. Others are unwitting…sincere, perhaps, but sincerely deceived. In both cases, pride has been the gateway. They have become separated from the Father Most High and have aligned, knowingly or not, with the enemy’s agenda. Scripture gives no excuse for this. We are repeatedly warned: Do not be deceived. Our shield is a personal, obedient relationship with Yahuah. If we are leaning on His understanding, He will not let us be led astray.

This deception is not new. It is the oldest story, repeating. Look back with me to 1 Samuel 8. The elders of Israel came to Samuel. They had a legitimate grievance: his sons were corrupt. But their proposed solution was a catastrophe. They did not cry out for God’s justice or renewal under His direct rule. They said, “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations” (1 Samuel 8:5, ESV).

Do you feel the weight of that? Like all the nations.

God’s response to Samuel cuts to the bone of all history: “They have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them” (1 Samuel 8:7, ESV).

He warned them what this king would do: take their sons, take their daughters, take the best of their fields, take a tenth of their flocks. “You shall be his slaves,” He said (1 Samuel 8:17, ESV). And the people, in a masterpiece of self-deception, doubled down: “No! But there shall be a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations…” (1 Samuel 8:19-20, ESV).

And God said, “Obey their voice. Make them a king” (1 Samuel 8:22, ESV).

He gave them what they asked for.

We read this and think, How foolish. How could they trade the direct rule of the Living God for a fallible man? We sit in our 2026 chairs and judge them.

But look around.

He will take your sons and your daughters. Not for chariots, but for ideologies. For systems that teach them they are cosmic accidents, that identity is self-created, that purpose is consumption and sensation.

He will take the best of your fields. Not for vineyards, but for data. Your attention, your allegiance, your private thoughts are the new harvest, reaped by digital empires.

He will take the tenth of your flocks. We call it taxes, inflation, perpetual debt, a sophisticated servitude that leaves you owned by the machinery.

You shall be his slaves. The chains are digital, psychological, and spiritual. We call it convenience. We call it progress. We call it being “like all the nations.”

We have done it again. We saw the corruption in the house of God, the hypocrisy, the scandal, the failings of human leaders, and instead of crying out for the pure, terrifying, liberating reign of Christ, we demanded a king. A political savior. A cultural identity. A system. Anything but the direct rule of God.

And He is giving us what we asked for.

This is the fruit of the tare. It is the rejection of the King for a kingdom of this world. It is the “American Lens” I’ve come to see so clearly, a lens that filters Scripture through Hollywood archetypes, celebrity pastors, nationalist fervor, and consumerist values until the Bible tells a story foreign to its Hebrew roots. It’s a lens that turns the hope of Revelation…the return of the King and the renewal of all things on a new earth (Revelation 21:1-5), into a escapist fantasy of a “rapture” away from problems. But Scripture says He is coming back here. “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus… will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven” (Acts 1:11, ESV). He left from the Mount of Olives. He will return to the Mount of Olives (Zechariah 14:4). Our hope is not evacuation; it is restoration.

This is why the tares are so hard to spot. They use the same words, “Jesus,” “grace,” “kingdom”, but they mean a different story. A different gospel. A different king.

And so we scan our media feeds. We see the wealthy building bunkers. Governments fortifying complexes. Preppers (and I was one for over a decade) digging deep. We see a world sensing a storm and scrambling for cover in the wrong places. We build these shelters thinking they will save us on the day of harvest.

Yahuah is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent. Which basically means He is all-knowing, all-powerful, and everywhere-present being. We can’t “gotcha” Him, surprise or catch Him off guard. Let that sink in for a bit and think about what that means for you in your walk.

Scripture calls this out, specifically: “Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?’” (Revelation 6:15-17, ESV).

The mountains will not hide them. The bunkers will not save them. The tares will be gathered first and bound for burning. The wheat will be gathered into the master’s barn. This is the great harvest. The second coming. The Day of Yahuah. It will come “like a thief in the night” (1 Thessalonians 5:2).

How can we tell it’s near? Yahusha told us: “And there will be signs in sun and moon and stars, and on the earth distress of nations in perplexity… people fainting with fear and with foreboding of what is coming on the world… Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:25-28, ESV). The same generation that sees these things beginning will see their culmination.

And when He comes, it will be unmistakable, universal: “Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him” (Revelation 1:7, ESV). Not just America. Not just one denomination. Every eye.

So why, as walkers of The Way, should we not be weighed down with fear? “But watch yourselves lest your hearts be weighed down with dissipation and drunkenness and cares of this life, and that day come upon you suddenly like a trap… But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man” (Luke 21:34-36, ESV).

Our hope is not in missing the tribulation. Our hope is in standing before the Son of Man.

Our posture is to be like the faithful servant: “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (Matthew 24:46, ESV). Doing what? The Master’s will. Faithful in the small things. Obedient in the unseen moments.

This brings me to the only question that has come to matter in my walk: Am I bent toward Him, or away?

It cuts through every theological debate. “Are we under the law?” “Is the Torah a shadow?” These are questions for scholars mapping a distant star. My question is the posture of my soul right now. Am I being obedient to God, or am I rebelling against His will? Am I doing the thing He has whispered for me to do, or am I choosing my personal, fleshly desire?

It is a binary state. A heart cannot harbor both captains. It is either yielded, open-palmed, saying “Your will,” or it is clenched, turned inward, saying “My will.” If my heart is bent toward Him in obedience, I trust the theological coordinates will align around that fixed point. “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5, ESV).

The Law, then, is not a fence to argue over. It is the shape of the “yes.” My obedience is the living Torah, written “not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:3, ESV). This was the promise: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts” (Jeremiah 31:33, ESV).

The tares are bent away. Their fruit is the fruit of rebellion: pride, unforgiveness, lawlessness. They may perform the motions, but their heart-posture is away. They have, like Israel of old, rejected Yahuah as King and chosen to be “like all the nations.”

The wheat is bent toward. Its fruit is the fruit of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). Its posture is one of surrendered obedience.

On that day, there will be two groups. The wicked and the holy. One is taken, the other is left. Which group is which depends on your understanding of the parables. But the point of all the prophecies is not to parse the timeline; it is to be found faithful and obedient when the day comes.

My task is not to root out the tares. That is the Master Harvester’s job, and He has warned that in trying to do it ourselves, we may uproot the wheat (Matthew 13:29). My task is to ensure I am wheat. To cultivate a heart so bent toward Him that I know His voice intimately amidst the roar of ten thousand deceivers. To have my eyes so fixed on His face that I am immune to the glittering illusions of the age.

The Father of Lies is counting on your distraction, your dullness, your desire to be “like all the nations.” He sends the strong delusion to those who refuse to love the truth (2 Thessalonians 2:10-11).

Our only defense is not a better bunker, but a closer walk. Not a purer ideology, but a purer intimacy. It is to be so familiar with the voice of the True Shepherd that the hireling’s call holds no allure.

So I walk this narrow path, lit only by the lamp of His Word and His Spirit. It feels lonely because the wheat is scattered in a field overgrown with tares. But I am not alone. He is with me. And He is connecting the scattered stalks of wheat, one by one, into a sheaf that will be gathered into His barn.

Let both grow together until the harvest. Let us be found growing, bent toward the Son, ready.

That is all, and thank you for reading.

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