Recently, ABBA has been directing me, over and over, to places in His Word speaking about His months, His feasts, His commands, His ways of doing things… Simultaneously, He’s been aligning me with others led to these same things. He’s giving me a love for His story from the beginning, and an understanding that many of His rich truths and original ways have been stolen from us, literally “lost in translation,” through the years. This has quickened in me a strong desire for better understanding, and for a restoration of all His truths and ways.

I’ve gradually been realizing just how many beliefs I’ve accepted through the years “just because,” receiving them blindly, instead of looking into the Word myself and asking ABBA for truth. He’s such a faithful Father. He’s been drawing me to cry out to Him, to be stripped of every false belief. It’s been a consistent, serious invitation to Him, to uproot, tear out, and burn away any and all false thoughts and beliefs I’ve ever had.

Most recently, the topic “names of God” has come up, and ABBA has given me a strong desire to only call Him what HE wants me to call Him. There is so much information and heated debate surrounding these things. As with anything else, I can only go directly to my Father and seek His truth on the matter. Anything I ever share is my own personal conviction, so as with ANY topic, I suggest to EVERY person, “GO DIRECTLY TO THE FATHER, BECAUSE ONLY HE KNOWS WHAT HE WANTS FOR YOU.”

This passage really speaks to me, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of Elohim, these are sons of Elohim. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, ‘ABBA, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of Elohim. (Romans 8:14-16a) Ever since realizing this truth, the Father has had me call Him “ABBA.” It just flows out naturally and there is complete peace in it.

I’ve also backed away from using certain words after learning more about where they stem from, and have begun using other words instead. As I’ve learned things I was not aware of before, I’ve been convicted to do what I believe is most pleasing to Him in these matters. Again, these are personal conclusions I’m coming to, and we each must seek HIM for what HE desires for us personally in any matter.

The next thing which started standing out to me was all the debate surrounding the name “Jesus Christ.” All these years, I’ve known the Messiah as “Jesus Christ.” It rolls off my tongue readily, and there is power in it. I know ABBA has honored my surrender in this name. I know demons flee at this name. But, upon learning it’s been translated/changed numerous times from the original name HE went by, in the language HE spoke, when He walked on the earth, I’ve sought HIM for what would be pleasing to HIM for me to call Him, with no preconceived notions.

So, I’ve been crying out to ABBA, with everything in me, to please tell me what to call Messiah, because again, I ONLY want to please HIM – and He answered me, in the most interesting way, last night. (Thank You again, ABBA. You truly amaze me!) I was driving a long distance, not feeling the best, just crying out to my Father. (The last few years have been a journey of really getting to understanding more and more just how much HE IS our ONLY Help, our ONLY Hope, our ONLY Salvation, and our ONLY Deliverance.) I was weeping, whining, feeling desperate for Him, and in the midst of this pouring out, “ISHI!…..” came out of my mouth.

I paused mid-prayer, realizing what had just happened, and I wept even more. I remembered hearing recently that ISHI in Hebrew means husband. He then brought my mind back to a section of His Word which had already been meaningful to me, but now even more so, as I realized He had just revealed to me what HE would be pleased for me to call HIM, by having me cry out TO HIM in that name!

“Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak kindly to her. Then I will give her her vineyards from there, and the Valley of Achor as a door of expectation/hope. And she will sing there as in the days of her youth, as in the day when she came up from the land of Egypt. And it will come about in that day,” declares יהוה, “that you will call Me, ‘ISHI’ (‘my Husband’), and no longer call Me ‘Baali’ (‘my Ba’al/Lord’). And I will remove the names of the Ba’als from her mouth, so that they will be mentioned by their names no more.”

“And in that day I will also make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the birds of the heavens, and with the creeping creatures of the ground. And I will abolish the bow, and the sword, and war from the earth. And I will make them lie down in safety. I will betroth you to Me forever; yes, I will betroth you to Me in righteousness, and in right-ruling, and in loving-commitment and compassion. And I will betroth you to Me in trustworthiness/faithfulness. Then you will know יהוה.”

“It will come about in that day that I will respond,” declares יהוה. “I will respond to the heavens, and they will respond to the earth, and the earth will respond to the grain and to the new wine and to the oil, and they will respond to Jezreel. And I will sow her for Myself in the earth, and I will have compassion on her who had not obtained compassion. And I will say to those who were not My people, ‘You are My people!’ And they will say, ‘You are my Elohim!’” (Hosea 2:14-23)

There is so much meaning to this passage, and I could share so much more about why ABBA prompting me to say “ISHI” (“my Husband”) is so meaningful to me personally, but I’ll save that for another time. After last night, I knew He wanted me to look up the word “ISHI,” so I just did that, and what I found made it even MORE amazing.

There are two ways to spell “ISHI” in Hebrew (excerpted from: Abarim Publications’ Biblical Dictionary). One spelling is אישי , which means “my man, my husband,” and is used only one time, in Hosea 2. It is interpreted here as a symbolic Divine name. The second spelling is ישעי , which means “salvation/deliverance.” A root word of this spelling is a verb which means “to be unrestricted and thus to be free, and thus to be saved (from restriction, from oppression and thus from ultimate demise). A doer of this verb is a savior.” Another form of this word means “to cry out for salvation.”

For the last few years, ABBA has been steadily teaching me He is NOT some distant, abusive deity, far away from us. In the beginning, He walked WITH Adam and Eve in the Garden in the cool of the day. Then, when they fell and we were separated from that intimacy with our Father, He sent His Son to restore us back to that CLOSE fellowship with Himself. He LOVES us and wants to WALK WITH us. He doesn’t go by formulas, and He doesn’t do the SAME thing ALL the time with EVERY single person. He is a PERSONAL Elohim, our Father, who tells us that through Messiah we can call Him, “ABBA (Daddy).”

Now, He is PREPARING A BRIDE FOR HIS SON, our ISHI, and He tells us to have our lamps burning bright, full of oil, with extra to spare, as we await His return! This comes ONLY from intimacy with Him – giving HIM the time and focus He deserves – prioritizing WORSHIPING HIM ABOVE ALL THE DISTRACTIONS – LISTENING to Him, and OBEYING all He reveals to us!

Father, make us ready!!!!