The ministry of this website is a labor of love toward my King and Master - Yeshua.
It is my privilege and blessing to encourage a thirst for truth among all who are serious about their journey toward the Kingdom to come...Our blessed Hope!
~ Donna Russert
It is my privilege and blessing to encourage a thirst for truth among all who are serious about their journey toward the Kingdom to come...Our blessed Hope!
~ Donna Russert
What Governs and Motivates Me
- The Holy Word of God -
The Bible is God's Holy Word, divinely preserved
and is the sole and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct,
and the power of God unto salvation.
- My Commission -
Out of gratitude and a desire to obey my most precious redeemer,
I commit my life toward persuading a lost and sinful world
to acknowledge Yeshua Messiah as Savior
and to enthrone Him as Lord and Master in their lives.
- The Holy Word of God -
The Bible is God's Holy Word, divinely preserved
and is the sole and supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct,
and the power of God unto salvation.
- My Commission -
Out of gratitude and a desire to obey my most precious redeemer,
I commit my life toward persuading a lost and sinful world
to acknowledge Yeshua Messiah as Savior
and to enthrone Him as Lord and Master in their lives.
Here is the rest of the story, for those that would like to know. The purpose of this account is to encourage others who may be struggling with letting go of what Father is asking of you and embrace all that He has for you. I'll try to keep it short and sweet, but I am very verbose and may not succeed. Please forgive me, if it's long, but try to glean from it, what may speak to you.
I was raised Catholic, but never embraced the faith. I went through all the appropriate ritual sacraments: infant baptism, reconciliation, "holy" communion, confirmation and marriage. The only sacraments I did not receive are those of annointing of the sick (which is often administered upon ones death bed) and that of holy orders (which are received when entering the religious system as a priest, bishop, etc).
At the age of 19 I was married and my husband and I [who was also a nominal catholic], sought to embrace our childhood faith. But we just never could. It seemed far off, ritualistic, contradictory, complicated and worldly. 5 years later, when we began our family, we decided that our faith needed to be important again. We weren't practicing catholics, but we thought we "should" put our first 2 children through the Catholic process. Since we weren't members of any congregation, it was a difficult and costly task to accomplish this. My Mother pulled some strings and because of her commitment to the local "church", we got the basics done and moved on with a life that was fairly devoid of walking with the Father.
In 1998, many things began to happen. We were invited to a non-denominational Christian Church and were drawn in by their "seeker-friendly" environment. After a time, we decided to "Dedicate" each of our now 3 children to the Lord and we fully embraced this new system of religion. It was comfortable, enjoyable to our emotions, filled with family activity and a place where we could feel useful. I do believe that the Spirit of the Father was fast at work through this experience, but used it only for a time to see if we would show the fruit of faith, as he stretched us way beyond our wildest dreams.
The next 10 years were a mix of "Churchy things at Church" and yet a personal walk for all of us that was riddled with sin. But as long as we put forth the good outward impression, everything was fine. We held major leaderships in the congregation, served in multiple ministries and were pillars in the local congregation and community. In 2007, things once again began to change.
We started to see fractures in the once impervious outward shell of our understanding of true faith. We began to question the ways of Christianity, the ways of fellowship, the ways that money was used in the religious system, the way people behaved toward one another and the bottom line was that this thing we had invested so much of our lives in, began to fail the tests of scripture.
Over the next 3-4 years, Father was working very hard to extricate us from many things we had been taught and told by religious systems and traditions of men. We became receptive Him teaching us by the power of His holy Word. Our minds started to truly understand the many entrapments we had been caught up in. We tried convincing ourselves that we couldn't possibly be being asked to remove ourselves from the "Church"!!! How could it be the case??? So we decided to immerse ourselves in personal ministry to fill the voids we felt at the congregation and that too was an amazing time of growth. It also showed us the chinks in that fragile veneer of "churchianity" and helped us to see even more. It was a very painful time, but filled with amazing grace and mercy. It was a time of loss of friends as we shared what was being revealed to us and a time of searching for what the Biblical way of fellowship should look like. We left that church and connected with another. It seemed like it was so different and we grew there too. But ultimately, the same unbiblical structures, the same man-made traditions, the same worldly ways existed there too and we realized that Father was gently and lovingly calling us out even more.
By 2011, it was as clear as could be that we no longer had a place among the organized religious systems that we had grown up in and embraced as adults. The folks with whom we tried to fellowship could not handle our questions and even though many of them did truly understand the doubts we brought forth, they chose to stuff them down deep and ignore them, rather than test everything and measure it's validity against scripture. They did not want their worlds rocked, but preferred to stay in the counterfeit of a comfortable system and maintain the status quo. The truth is, that so many of the families we had grown to love and had spent so much time with, were putting on the same false facade that we were. They too were struggling with sin, questions about their faith, and the accuracy of what the christian religion was doing with regard to scripture. But for some reason that I do not understand, they have chosen not to use these queues for self examination and further growth.
So my husband and I moved forward in faith, not knowing where this would lead and began to study even more fervently, all the things we had been questioning on our own and with a few others that were brave enough to stay connected to us. This was a tremendous time of growth. The Father was moving exponentially fast and orchestrated everything to bring us to a place of extreme reliance on Him. He was moving in our lives to bring us to a point of true DECISION! Would we act on what we were learning and claimed to believe, or would we too, shrink back into the old wiring and settle into a "comfort zone" of deceit, lies and delusion about what His walk of faith truly looks like?
We learned that there are many things that the Father is asking us to do to purify ourselves according to His holy Word. Some of what we heard and obeyed was about the renunciation of pagan holidays, the embracing of His feasts and Sabbath to glorify him and worship according to His instructions. We also learned about how we should eat, what ways we should earn a living and what things we should stay clear of.
By the end of 2013 we realized that our heavenly Father was asking us to take a very large step of faith. With our children now mostly grown and our ties to religious systems finally severed, he methodically and lovingly began extricating us from more ties that had the possibility of encumbering our start to an amazing new season of life that He had in store for us. The big question for us now, was "would we trust Him and give to Him all the things he was asking of us?" We asked, "More Father?" What more can we give? We've already (in our own minds) given up so much! How blind we were to how very little we had given to the One who is deserving of our very ALL. It seemed insane, but it could not have been more clear. There was a sense of promise on our lives. A sense of purpose and hope that we had never experienced before. We knew this because as we learned more from scripture about the true walk of a disciple of Yeshua, many more things in our lives no longer made as much sense as they once did [see martial art testimony here for more on this]. We both had successful and prolific careers in all the endeavors we started, established a home, a family, friendships and were well loved by many people in the community. Our extended family was a blessing and our jobs were good. But Father continued to reveal the sin in our lives and showed us the hope of His promises if we would just continue to search for and repent of those sins. He put a calling on our lives and we knew it. The calling was not something more special than anyone else, but simply perhaps more obvious to us at that time. It's amazing to see how clear our purpose is, when we take away the blinders of sin, tradition, and unbiblical authority in our lives. He makes His plans known and honors our willingness to repent and follow Him according to His ways.
By November of 2014, we had made the decisions to do exactly what we had been prompted to do. We ended our local employment, we stripped our belongings down to almost nothing and we followed our Father's instructions in every way we knew how. This led to relocation to another state, buying a fixer-upper house that we knew would ultimately be used for His glory, left all the people we knew and loved many miles behind and we embarked on the path of faith. He lovingly showed us He was with us every step of the way by ensuring safety and provision for us and our family. And even more than all that...He gave us a purpose and a Hope in the promises of His precious Son, that we never knew before.
By 2015, we were learning so much more about the ways Father wants us to worship Him, love Him and serve Him. After much study, prayer and "iron sharpening iron" with others, we came to the conclusion that the whole Word of God is still intact and applicable to our lives in every way. We were more earnestly exploring the hebraic foundations of our faith that everyone around us kept condemning and we began to more clearly see the many things we had missed. We could now discern the things we were taught wrong or just downright deceived about. Over the next many months, we realized that we were actually no longer able to align the truth we saw in scripture with the ideology and doctrines that are the foundations of christianity. We had learned some seemingly small things early on like Christmas and Easter being a counterfeit to Fathers ways to worship Him. We also began to learn that the Torah [instructions] of our Father had much wisdom and application for our lives today and in all of this present age. As we embraced these things, the resistance by mainstream friends, family and the "christianized" community was subtle, but constant. It seemed that the choices we were making for our own lives, caused a reaction of defensiveness and anger in them. But it wasn't that we were condemning anyone's behavior; we were simply changing ours. And in those changes, many of the people we knew, felt an unsettling conviction about their own beliefs. But rather than explore the unsettling feeling and seeking truth, they most often reverted to anger and ignored those promptings of the spirit.
And it's not that we were convinced that we had everything figured out. BY all means - NO! We simply discovered that a good test to know if we were on the right track was if we knew the peace of our Master Yeshua. He promised he would give us His Holy Spirit [breath/mind] and it would impart His peace to us. It was ironic that when we shared the ways we were living our lives now with others, that we were fully convicted and had no doubt about our path. Even when others did not believe the same way we did, we didn't feel a need to try and convince anyone to do what were doing, or a need to condemn anyone for their choices. We simply shared and trusted the Spirit of Father to do His work in all of our hearts. It continues to astonish us to see the intense response from others when we share the choices we've made to walk more in line with scripture. There was so often a sense of defensiveness, a sense of needing to justify and convince that their way was right and the way were walking was wrong and would somehow lead to a terrible end. We too used to do that when we were not fully convicted of our stand on things. The true measure of assurance is to be able to stand on your convictions and not doubt that you are on the right track. We certainly know that we do not have it all figured out, but at least knowing we are on the right path is a blessing beyond measure. And the fruit of our lives has proven that.
I'm especially grateful for the time between 2014 and 2016 with my husband. We grew together and learned more in that time about walking a more genuine walk with our Father than at any other time in our lives. We learned how to be a husband and a wife according to His instructions and learned that even in the midst of mistakes and sin, there is hope and forgiveness in the life, death and resurrection of our King Yeshua. My husband unexpectedly and suddenly breathed his last breath near the end of 2016. I was and still am heartbroken beyond words, but I continue to carry on in the faith that I embrace. I can honestly say this...if it weren't for the knowledge of who our precious Father and His son truly are, and the promises they have made to us, it would be almost impossible for me to live the remainder of my life with much value. But Hope is what gives purpose and fuel to our life, even in the midst of sorrow, trial and tribulation. In learning about the character and goodness of our creator toward us, I am even more humbled and grateful for our Blessed Hope. The resurrection and life to come in a perfect Kingdom ruled by a righteous King.
So until we meet there, I pray we would all seek His face, learn of His ways, obey His Holy Word, share our Hope with others and strive for our place in eternity.
May the Father of all creation bless and keep you in the Name above all Names - Yeshua Messiah.
At the age of 19 I was married and my husband and I [who was also a nominal catholic], sought to embrace our childhood faith. But we just never could. It seemed far off, ritualistic, contradictory, complicated and worldly. 5 years later, when we began our family, we decided that our faith needed to be important again. We weren't practicing catholics, but we thought we "should" put our first 2 children through the Catholic process. Since we weren't members of any congregation, it was a difficult and costly task to accomplish this. My Mother pulled some strings and because of her commitment to the local "church", we got the basics done and moved on with a life that was fairly devoid of walking with the Father.
In 1998, many things began to happen. We were invited to a non-denominational Christian Church and were drawn in by their "seeker-friendly" environment. After a time, we decided to "Dedicate" each of our now 3 children to the Lord and we fully embraced this new system of religion. It was comfortable, enjoyable to our emotions, filled with family activity and a place where we could feel useful. I do believe that the Spirit of the Father was fast at work through this experience, but used it only for a time to see if we would show the fruit of faith, as he stretched us way beyond our wildest dreams.
The next 10 years were a mix of "Churchy things at Church" and yet a personal walk for all of us that was riddled with sin. But as long as we put forth the good outward impression, everything was fine. We held major leaderships in the congregation, served in multiple ministries and were pillars in the local congregation and community. In 2007, things once again began to change.
We started to see fractures in the once impervious outward shell of our understanding of true faith. We began to question the ways of Christianity, the ways of fellowship, the ways that money was used in the religious system, the way people behaved toward one another and the bottom line was that this thing we had invested so much of our lives in, began to fail the tests of scripture.
Over the next 3-4 years, Father was working very hard to extricate us from many things we had been taught and told by religious systems and traditions of men. We became receptive Him teaching us by the power of His holy Word. Our minds started to truly understand the many entrapments we had been caught up in. We tried convincing ourselves that we couldn't possibly be being asked to remove ourselves from the "Church"!!! How could it be the case??? So we decided to immerse ourselves in personal ministry to fill the voids we felt at the congregation and that too was an amazing time of growth. It also showed us the chinks in that fragile veneer of "churchianity" and helped us to see even more. It was a very painful time, but filled with amazing grace and mercy. It was a time of loss of friends as we shared what was being revealed to us and a time of searching for what the Biblical way of fellowship should look like. We left that church and connected with another. It seemed like it was so different and we grew there too. But ultimately, the same unbiblical structures, the same man-made traditions, the same worldly ways existed there too and we realized that Father was gently and lovingly calling us out even more.
By 2011, it was as clear as could be that we no longer had a place among the organized religious systems that we had grown up in and embraced as adults. The folks with whom we tried to fellowship could not handle our questions and even though many of them did truly understand the doubts we brought forth, they chose to stuff them down deep and ignore them, rather than test everything and measure it's validity against scripture. They did not want their worlds rocked, but preferred to stay in the counterfeit of a comfortable system and maintain the status quo. The truth is, that so many of the families we had grown to love and had spent so much time with, were putting on the same false facade that we were. They too were struggling with sin, questions about their faith, and the accuracy of what the christian religion was doing with regard to scripture. But for some reason that I do not understand, they have chosen not to use these queues for self examination and further growth.
So my husband and I moved forward in faith, not knowing where this would lead and began to study even more fervently, all the things we had been questioning on our own and with a few others that were brave enough to stay connected to us. This was a tremendous time of growth. The Father was moving exponentially fast and orchestrated everything to bring us to a place of extreme reliance on Him. He was moving in our lives to bring us to a point of true DECISION! Would we act on what we were learning and claimed to believe, or would we too, shrink back into the old wiring and settle into a "comfort zone" of deceit, lies and delusion about what His walk of faith truly looks like?
We learned that there are many things that the Father is asking us to do to purify ourselves according to His holy Word. Some of what we heard and obeyed was about the renunciation of pagan holidays, the embracing of His feasts and Sabbath to glorify him and worship according to His instructions. We also learned about how we should eat, what ways we should earn a living and what things we should stay clear of.
By the end of 2013 we realized that our heavenly Father was asking us to take a very large step of faith. With our children now mostly grown and our ties to religious systems finally severed, he methodically and lovingly began extricating us from more ties that had the possibility of encumbering our start to an amazing new season of life that He had in store for us. The big question for us now, was "would we trust Him and give to Him all the things he was asking of us?" We asked, "More Father?" What more can we give? We've already (in our own minds) given up so much! How blind we were to how very little we had given to the One who is deserving of our very ALL. It seemed insane, but it could not have been more clear. There was a sense of promise on our lives. A sense of purpose and hope that we had never experienced before. We knew this because as we learned more from scripture about the true walk of a disciple of Yeshua, many more things in our lives no longer made as much sense as they once did [see martial art testimony here for more on this]. We both had successful and prolific careers in all the endeavors we started, established a home, a family, friendships and were well loved by many people in the community. Our extended family was a blessing and our jobs were good. But Father continued to reveal the sin in our lives and showed us the hope of His promises if we would just continue to search for and repent of those sins. He put a calling on our lives and we knew it. The calling was not something more special than anyone else, but simply perhaps more obvious to us at that time. It's amazing to see how clear our purpose is, when we take away the blinders of sin, tradition, and unbiblical authority in our lives. He makes His plans known and honors our willingness to repent and follow Him according to His ways.
By November of 2014, we had made the decisions to do exactly what we had been prompted to do. We ended our local employment, we stripped our belongings down to almost nothing and we followed our Father's instructions in every way we knew how. This led to relocation to another state, buying a fixer-upper house that we knew would ultimately be used for His glory, left all the people we knew and loved many miles behind and we embarked on the path of faith. He lovingly showed us He was with us every step of the way by ensuring safety and provision for us and our family. And even more than all that...He gave us a purpose and a Hope in the promises of His precious Son, that we never knew before.
By 2015, we were learning so much more about the ways Father wants us to worship Him, love Him and serve Him. After much study, prayer and "iron sharpening iron" with others, we came to the conclusion that the whole Word of God is still intact and applicable to our lives in every way. We were more earnestly exploring the hebraic foundations of our faith that everyone around us kept condemning and we began to more clearly see the many things we had missed. We could now discern the things we were taught wrong or just downright deceived about. Over the next many months, we realized that we were actually no longer able to align the truth we saw in scripture with the ideology and doctrines that are the foundations of christianity. We had learned some seemingly small things early on like Christmas and Easter being a counterfeit to Fathers ways to worship Him. We also began to learn that the Torah [instructions] of our Father had much wisdom and application for our lives today and in all of this present age. As we embraced these things, the resistance by mainstream friends, family and the "christianized" community was subtle, but constant. It seemed that the choices we were making for our own lives, caused a reaction of defensiveness and anger in them. But it wasn't that we were condemning anyone's behavior; we were simply changing ours. And in those changes, many of the people we knew, felt an unsettling conviction about their own beliefs. But rather than explore the unsettling feeling and seeking truth, they most often reverted to anger and ignored those promptings of the spirit.
And it's not that we were convinced that we had everything figured out. BY all means - NO! We simply discovered that a good test to know if we were on the right track was if we knew the peace of our Master Yeshua. He promised he would give us His Holy Spirit [breath/mind] and it would impart His peace to us. It was ironic that when we shared the ways we were living our lives now with others, that we were fully convicted and had no doubt about our path. Even when others did not believe the same way we did, we didn't feel a need to try and convince anyone to do what were doing, or a need to condemn anyone for their choices. We simply shared and trusted the Spirit of Father to do His work in all of our hearts. It continues to astonish us to see the intense response from others when we share the choices we've made to walk more in line with scripture. There was so often a sense of defensiveness, a sense of needing to justify and convince that their way was right and the way were walking was wrong and would somehow lead to a terrible end. We too used to do that when we were not fully convicted of our stand on things. The true measure of assurance is to be able to stand on your convictions and not doubt that you are on the right track. We certainly know that we do not have it all figured out, but at least knowing we are on the right path is a blessing beyond measure. And the fruit of our lives has proven that.
I'm especially grateful for the time between 2014 and 2016 with my husband. We grew together and learned more in that time about walking a more genuine walk with our Father than at any other time in our lives. We learned how to be a husband and a wife according to His instructions and learned that even in the midst of mistakes and sin, there is hope and forgiveness in the life, death and resurrection of our King Yeshua. My husband unexpectedly and suddenly breathed his last breath near the end of 2016. I was and still am heartbroken beyond words, but I continue to carry on in the faith that I embrace. I can honestly say this...if it weren't for the knowledge of who our precious Father and His son truly are, and the promises they have made to us, it would be almost impossible for me to live the remainder of my life with much value. But Hope is what gives purpose and fuel to our life, even in the midst of sorrow, trial and tribulation. In learning about the character and goodness of our creator toward us, I am even more humbled and grateful for our Blessed Hope. The resurrection and life to come in a perfect Kingdom ruled by a righteous King.
So until we meet there, I pray we would all seek His face, learn of His ways, obey His Holy Word, share our Hope with others and strive for our place in eternity.
May the Father of all creation bless and keep you in the Name above all Names - Yeshua Messiah.