THE WORD: L’chai !

 chai

Jesus Christ said, “I AM the Way, the Truth, the Life.” (John 14:6)

TO LIFE!

When Americans celebrate something and make a toast, we clink our glasses together and say “Cheers!” Jewish people would instead say “L’chai!” which in Hebrew means “To Life!”

“Chai” meaning “life” is pronounced close to our English greeting of “Hi!”  It is written  חי  in Hebrew. “Chai” means so much to the Jewish people that they wear necklaces with the symbol  חי.

There is also a traditional Jewish song with these lyrics:

“Israel lives!”            (Am Yisrael chai!)    עם ישראל חי
“Our Father lives!”   (Od Avinu chai!)       עוד אבינו חי

Indeed, without their heavenly Father God, Israel would have ceased to exist long ago. The evil devil has been trying to destroy them as a nation for century after century! But God made an eternal promise to the Jewish people to keep them and He is keeping that promise! The Jewish people live as a unique nation,  a true testimony to the faithfulness of God the Father.

THE LIVING GOD

God revealed Himself to Israel as the “Living God”. The same symbol  חי  is used in this name.

The pagan people around Israel in Old Testament times offered sacrifices to wooden and/or stone images.  But the One True God is a Living God and He had commanded His people NOT to bow down to idols. Indeed, no matter how fancy or big, no idol could be good enough to represent the Living God of Israel!

Yeshua (Jesus Christ) taught,

“God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” (John 4:24)

Any idol would be a false image of the True God who is a living spirit!

Yet Yeshua Himself is the “image of the invisible God”. (Col 1:15)

Yeshua said,

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

Yeshua is the way to the Father, He is the true image and expression of the Father, and He is the Father! It is only the Father who is Life and gives life to all who live!  Isaiah had indeed prophesied that the Son would also be the Everlasting Father.   In the realm of God’s Spirit, that is ever so possible!  

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”  (Isaiah 9:6)

So Yeshua continued explaining this hard concept to His disciples,

“If you had known Me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know Him and have seen Him….. Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in Me? The words I say to you I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in Me, who is doing His work. Believe Me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; or at least believe on the evidence of the works themselves.” (John 14:7,10-11)

The Living God Yeshua walked among men and did many miracles and wonders. He raised the man Lazarus from the dead. After unbelievers killed the Messiah’s own body on a cross, He then arose from the dead, proving that He is indeed the Living God! Yeshua is alive! He lives today in the hearts of all who believe. He doesn’t live in our hearts in memory only, but truly abides in us by His Spirit! Believers can hear His voice and feel His Presence and know His love.  HalleluYAH!

My heart wants to cheer, “L’chai!” and sing with all my heart, “My Father lives!”

Shalom!

NEXT LESSON

1 thought on “THE WORD: L’chai !

  1. I made a mistake on the illustration: The word “chai” should be חי. But my browser is not working and I can’t get in to change it! Sorry for the confusion.

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