Carrie Wigal

I lived in Rockaway, New Jersey, a suburban community for most of my upbringing, from the age of 9 to 27, with a 4-year stint away at college. We lived on top of a hill, on a 1/3 acre lot. It became a common practice to go for walks around the block with my Dad after dinner. Sometimes we’d just walk around the immediate block once, sometimes twice and sometimes we’d walk all the way down to the bottom of the hill and back up again.

What I enjoyed most with these walks was having the chance to talk freely about anything on my heart, and my Dad would listen. He’d share his thoughts as well, but for the most part, I recall being the one sharing mine.

This pastime had a profound impact on my life. I felt the most loved at these times. I felt heard. I felt valued.

I don’t know if my Dad felt loved in this same way of being heard or if he felt loved by being spoken to so freely. I imagine both were true. However, I do know he rarely shut me down, and he always seemed eager to hear my thoughts. And as a result, I always felt welcome to share with him anything and everything.

This regular heart-inspired exchange modeled for me a relationship I share with my heavenly Father. Through my Dad I learned that I matter to Abba, my heavenly Father, that the passions of my heart mean something, and that there is an intrinsic value to my being. My Dad taught me the love of the Father in heaven.

Looking back over my adult years, it’s so easy to see the similarities between my father and I…the similar path we have taken.

• We shared a passion for the One who made us and His Word. He taught me to read daily and to test everything in Scripture. 
• We worked together in business.  He mentored me and groomed me in entrepreneurship.
• We shared in political engagement. He taught me to speak out in public, and to engage in the community around me. He taught me to promote the values I hold through both my words and deeds.
• We shared in writing our thoughts down. He taught me to take what’s inside my heart and mind and put it in a format where others can get to know what makes me tick.

These shared experiences demonstrate to me that when we walk with our heavenly Father in loving devotion, His ways become our ways. I feel so incredibly blessed to have had this relationship here on earth.

“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.’ Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for YHVH your God proveth you, to know whether ye love YHVH your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after YHVH your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.” Deuteronomy 13:1-4

As stated in Part 1 on this series, “Warning from Deuteronomy 13:1-4“, a problem I see in Protestant Christianity here in the West is that we are taught to regard the New Testament higher than the Old Testament. We are taught who God is and what he expects of us as his children through the lens of the New Testament and the doctrines of man.

Unfortunately, in doing so we hear that the commandments of God have either changed or been put away in part, despite the fact that Matthew 5:17-18 records Jesus (Yeshua) as saying,

“Think not that I came to destroy/weaken the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy/weaken, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.”

Since the teaching in Western Christianity/Catholicism is that the law of the Old Testament has been put away or does not apply to the believer in Jesus (Yeshua), we do not recognize that the warning of Deuteronomy 13:1-4 applies to the Christian believer. We don’t make the connection that the very prophets warned about, who are saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.‘ are the priests/preachers in Catholicism & Protestant Christianity that promote Sunday Sabbath, Christmas & Easter! Read more »

Before my family started keeping the seventh day Sabbath set apart, my understanding of a whole day was first there was morning, then afternoon, followed by evening and ending with night. In my mind the day had four parts: morning, afternoon, evening, and night; it always began in the morning and ended at night.

However, when we started keeping the seventh day Sabbath set apart, we automatically switched to an “evening-to-evening reckoning” because for some reason we had it in the back of our minds that a whole “Biblical day” began in the evening when the sun went down. I think it’s because of the verses in Genesis 1 that say, “And there was evening and there was morning – the [#] day.” Thereafter, we started paying more attention to sundown on Friday & Saturday nights for the start/end of our day.

After about a year and a half, someone posed the question on a blog I frequent, “When does the day begin: sunrise or sunset?” The author was putting forth the idea that Scripture taught it began at sunrise, not sunset. Needless to say, he was swimming upstream, as most of the readers commenting believed the contrary.

This caused me to dig a little deeper into the subject. Read more »

“If there arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of dreams, and giveth thee a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof he spake unto thee, saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.’ Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams: for YHVH your God proveth you, to know whether ye love YHVH your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Ye shall walk after YHVH your God, and fear him, and keep his commandments, and obey his voice, and ye shall serve him, and cleave unto him.” Deuteronomy 13:1-4

A problem I see in Protestant Christianity here in the West is that we are taught to regard the New Testament higher than the Old Testament. We are taught who God is and what he expects of us as his children through the lens of the New Testament and the doctrines of man.

Unfortunately, in doing so we hear that the commandments of God have either changed or been put away in part, despite the fact that Matthew 5:17-18 records Jesus (Yeshua) as saying,

“Think not that I came to destroy/weaken the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy/weaken, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished.”

Since the teaching in Western Christianity/Catholicism is that the law of the Old Testament has been put away or does not apply to the believer in Jesus (Yeshua), we do not recognize that the warning of Deuteronomy 13:1-4 applies to the Christian believer. We don’t make the connection that the very prophets warned about, who are saying, ‘Let us go after other gods, which thou hast not known, and let us serve them.’ are the priests/preachers in Catholicism & Protestant Christianity that promote Sunday Sabbath, Christmas & Easter. Read more »

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. – Genesis 1:3-4

Here we see God calling light into existence. He saw that it was good and he divided the light from the darkness. He separated the light from the darkness. He distinguished between the light and the darkness. He made a distinction between the light and the darkness. The action described here in Hebrew is “badal beyn”. When we look in Scripture to see what else has been “badal beyn”, we find the following: Read more »

I hate Christmas. I have not liked Christmas for a long time — well over ten years. When I was single, living on my own, I recognized this holiday was propped up by the entertainment industry as a time of warm & fuzzy feelings, but for me it was very empty.

This season wreaks of commercialism and I didn’t want any part of it. But year after year I’d put up a tree out of a sense of obligation and decorate it. I’d buy Christmas presents (on a very small scale), attend Christmas gatherings, eat lots of Christmas cookies, listen to Christmas music and watch lots of Christmas movies.

Then I’d remind myself that the real reason for the season was Jesus. I’d go to church, participate in the Christmas programs, go caroling, and read the Biblical account of Christ’s birth in Scripture — all with the hope of finding peace, joy and love during this horribly depressing, worldly holiday.

Then last year I chose not to celebrate the holiday. This was after a year of starting to keep the seventh day Sabbath set apart. I had spent the year studying the holy days in Leviticus 23 and started keeping them as best I could according to Scripture.

I started seeing the richness in these feasts and how *they* were truly all about Jesus. I saw how Jesus kept these festivals and Paul encouraged the gentile-turned believers to also keep the feasts. While I tried to share this with others, it was like nobody was interested.

During that year I started taking a deeper look at Easter and Christmas. I discovered that not only was Jesus *not* born on December 25th, but this day marks the birth of other gods in ancient history. Then I started looking into the origins of the Christmas tree and how Christmas even began as a Christian holiday, and I found it all rather disturbing.

The reason I found it all disturbing was because I had already purposed in my heart that I would love the LORD my God with my *whole* heart, mind and strength. Jesus said this was the first and greatest commandment. When I went back to Deuteronomy to see the context of this command, I found the way to do this was to obey all his commands.

The first of the Ten Commandmants is to have no other gods in his face. Well, Christmas is clearly about other gods.

Scripture also teaches that we are not to worship God in the manner of the heathen. The story of the golden calf demonstrates this. While others may not see Christmas as a picture of the golden calf, I do. Out of love for my God, I choose to have nothing to do with Christmas.

I understand not everyone feels the same as I do, and I’m okay with that. But I, personally, don’t want to have *any*thing to do with Christmas anymore. That is why I’m now done with Christmas.

I’m finding that I might have made a mistake in not explaining our departure from church. I just spoke with someone who attended the same church we did for years, and they didn’t know why we left. She was surprised to hear that we were asked to leave.

Let me first explain, my reason for sharing this now is simply to inform folks of where our heart has been and is today concerning our fellowship with those whom we attended church for over three years.

When we first started attending this particular church, we were looking for a church close to home that was Biblically-based and allowed for the move of the Holy Spirit. The first day we attended, we felt right at home with the praise & worship, and we liked the fact that the message was centered on Scripture.

We also felt very welcome by the members we met that day. We were invited back to a Wednesday night meal, and we went. At the time I was pregnant and had two small children and a preteen, and clearly this church welcomed children.

We decided right away this is where we would remain. We became involved immediately. About a year later we decided to formally join as members, which was a shock to most people because so many thought we were members already.

We did not take our commitment to membership lightly…in fact, we never imagined not being there any longer. Read more »

I’ve been very familiar with the verse in Galatians 3:13 that says,

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”

Paul was referencing this passage in the Torah/Law:

Deuteronomy 21:22-23 “If a man guilty of a capital offense is put to death and his body is hung on a tree, you must not leave his body on the tree overnight. Be sure to bury him that same day, because anyone who is hung on a tree is under God’s curse. You must not desecrate the land YHWH your God is giving you as an inheritance.”

I was also very familiar with the death and burial of Jesus/Yeshua. Each of the gospel accounts indicated he was hung on a tree, taken down at sunset and buried in a tomb.

But something I did not notice before in the Prophets concerning the Israelites being taken into the promised land was what specifically happened to each of the kings of the areas that were destroyed/conquered. Read more »

About a year or so ago, I started noticing when reading my Bible the Israelites were constantly being called to repent, to turn back to YHWH. They were continually being admonished for following after other gods or putting other gods in His face. I thought to myself, what is the deal here? Then I asked myself how are we like that?

In America it seemed to me that there weren’t any other “gods” or “idolatry” except when we glorify things or people, elevating them to a level higher than God. But other than that, we didn’t worship Baal or Asherah or anything like that. Those were things you saw in other parts of the world, not in America.

Some folks might worship nature or the environment but I didn’t think I was guilty of that. Some worship the almighty dollar, but I didn’t think I was guilty of that either. My greatest concern was making sure my priorities were straight, putting God before anyone or anything else.

But then as I continued to read my Bible, I kept thinking there is an *awful* lot of attention drawn to “idolatry” and/or “sexual immorality” in the entire Bible. If there is that much attention to it, it *must* be more pervasive than I realize. At some point I also came to understand that the constant reference to sexual immorality in the Scriptures often times means following after other gods.

Then I started thinking about the wide path that leads to destruction and the narrow gate that very few find. (Matthew 7:13-14) Could Christianity in its purest form really be the narrow gate? I mean, not just the ones that say they are Christian and go to church, but the ones who believe in Jesus and live a life that reflects that. There seems to be an awful lot of Christians to be considered “few”, I thought. Read more »

It has come to my attention that I might be offending people when I say “Read the Bible”, as if I was suggesting that people aren’t already reading their Bibles. If that is the case, I’m very sorry.

One of the reasons why I continually say to read the Bible, is because I believe we need to continually read our Bible. Many may already be doing that, and that’s great. My charge to read the Bible is because I want to encourage people to always go back to the Word of God. The Truth is found there.

When I was first questioning “obedience to what?”, I would read whole books at a time. It’s not that I never read them before, but I felt like I was missing something. So, I’d read it again. Then, I’d read it again. Then, when I felt like the LORD was telling me something, I’d read it again with that thought in mind.

When I started sharing my thoughts with others, they would say to me, “You need to read Galatians.” or “You need to read Romans.” Now, of course I’ve read those books before…in fact I had read them fairly recent to their charge for me to read them. BUT, I’d go ahead and read them again. I wanted to see something I might have missed.

One of the beautiful things about God’s Word is that it’s alive! It literally speaks to us. Read more »