This morning I woke up with this verse in my head. I felt led to read it without punctuation or numbers. The original letters had no chapter, verses, punctuation. I was led to John/Yochanan 14:13-17
And whatever you ask in My Name that I shall do in order that the Father might be esteemed in the Son If you ask whatever in My Name I shall do it If you love Me you shall guard My commands and I shall ask the Father, and He shall give you another Helper to stay with you forever the Spirit of the Truth, whom the world is unable to receive because it does not see Him or know Him But you know Him for He stays with you and shall be in you
I saw the same pattern of instruction YHWH gave to the children of Yisrael in the Torah. Look at Whatever you ask in My Name I shall do "IF" you keep My commands (then) And I shall ask the Father, (then) And He shall give you a Helper - the Spirit of Truth.
Just as before we find witnesses in Scripture of these "and, if, & then"
Gen 4:7 "If you do well, is there not acceptance? And if you do not do well, sin1 is crouching at the door. And its desire is for you, but you should master it." Footnote: 1Sin (transgression of the law) was already then known, as we also read in 39:9.
Exo 15:26 And He said, "If you diligently obey the voice of יהוה your Elohim and do what is right in His eyes, and shall listen to His commands and shall guard all His laws, I shall bring on you none of the diseases I brought on the Mitsrites, for I am יהוה who heals you."
Lev 26:14-17 ‘But if you do not obey Me, and do not do all these commands, and if you reject My laws, or if your being loathes My right-rulings, so that you do not do all My commands, but break My covenant, I also do this to you: And I shall appoint sudden alarm over you, wasting disease and inflammation, destroying the eyes, and consuming the life. And you shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. ‘And I shall set My face against you, and you shall be smitten before your enemies. And those who hate you shall rule over you, and you shall flee when no one pursues you.
Deu 11:16-23 ‘Guard yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other mighty ones and bow down to them. ‘Then the displeasure of יהוה shall burn against you, and He shall shut up the heavens, and there be no rain, and the land not give its increase. And you shall perish quickly from the good land which יהוה is giving you. ‘For if you diligently guard all these commands which I command you, to do it, to love יהוה your Elohim, to walk in all His ways, and to cling to Him, then יהוה shall drive out all these nations before you, and you shall dispossess greater and stronger nations than you.
Here we see how the first and greatest command comes before we can even say we are anything or represent Him on earth. If you love Him comes first then we receive the Ruach of Truth. That is why Shema was included as the commands to the Children of Yisra'El to point them that First Greatest Command to the foundation of our relationship with the Father. The foundation to a relationship with our Father YHWH is Love. For that we need to know the definition of love and then teach it to our children. We need to know what LOVE means to Yah.
אהב
Love / bea / A.H.B Translation:+Love Definition:+To
provide and protect that which is given as a privilege. An
intimacy of action and emotion. Strong affection for another
arising from personal ties. AHLB:+1094-C (V) Strong's:+157
Love in Hebrew is "Ahab" pronounced 'a-have' or 'a-haave' which in the paleo-hebrew is an aleph(ox-bow head) + hey(arms in the air to breath) + beyt(the tent floorplan), which means a strong breath, a strong desire for something. YHWH our Elohim ahabed us so much. A good husband ahabs his wife, a parent ahabs his children.
More about the word אהב
We do not choose our parents or siblings, but are instead given to us as a gift from above, a privileged gift. Even in the ancient Hebrew culture ones wife was chosen. It is our responsibility to provide and protect that privileged gift. In our modern Western culture love is an abstract thought of emotion, how one feels toward another but the Hebrew meaning goes much deeper. As a verb this word means "to provide and protect what is given as a privilege" as well as " to have an intimacy of action and emotion". We are told to love Elohiym and our neighbors, not in an emotional sense, but in the sense of our actions.
Deu 6:4-5 "Hear, O Yisra’ĕl: יהוה our Elohim, יהוה is one! "And you shall love יהוה your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your might.
Now that we know what is Love we can see that by our actions we show that we love Him, by our actions we show who we believe in, by our actions we show that we love our brothers. Love is guarding something inside our heart that we protect and we do not want to loose. If I ask you for a dollar you might say here you go and be happy doiing it. Now If I ask you give me your car or your house or a family member you will protect it with your life and would not give anything to me. So look at Yahshua and say that you love Him, then say I can give Shabbat away, or I can give Torah away, or I can go back to the church and live according to their teachings. We do the same when we lie, covet, or mere show not who we are when we are among people with other beliefs. I ask you Do you love Him? Do you guard it like you guard your life or citizenship or your job? Ask your children to give their video games away or their favorite toy. Then ask them if you want to go back to the church or not keeping Sabbath and see their reaction.
1Jn 2:3-6 And by this we know that we know Him, if we guard His commands. The one who says, "I know Him," and does not guard His commands, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoever guards His Word, truly the love of Elohim has been perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. The one who says he stays in Him ought himself also to walk, even as He walked.