As we seek to learn and grow as believers in Jesus Christ there are many subjects to study in order to have a well-rounded understanding and faith in Yahweh. The following three areas are very foundational and will form the basis for a growing relationship with Yahweh, Yahshua and the Spirit of Christ.
“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.” 2 Corinthians 13:14 (NKJV)
The Love of Yahweh – Yahweh is our Father and His Love is the reason for Creation. His desire is for a family that can experience the great love He has for us. When we have comprehended the “love of Yahweh” we will understand that there is nothing Yahweh will not do for us.
“He that did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things.” Romans 8:32 (NKJV)
Paul said that we can “be filled with all the fullness of God” (Ephesians 3:19). Yahweh is Love, so we can be filled with His Love and also love others to the same extent that we are being loved.
“By this shall all men know that you are my disciples (having learned to love as Jesus does), if you have love one for another.” John 13:35 (NKJV)
Yahshua – Our Lord & Master. We are saved when we “confess Yahshua as Lord and Master and believe that Yahweh raised Him from the dead” (Romans 10:9 NKJV). Understanding His lordship and allowing Him to be our Master will determine how we relate to Him. Before we are saved, we are under the dominion of the devil. When we receive the Lord, He delivers us from under Satan’s lordship and we come under the dominion of Yahshua. We were slaves to sin under Satan’s lordship, but we have been set free now and surrender to the Lordship of Yahshua out of love and gratitude. To allow Him to be our Lord and Master means we aresubmissive and obedient to His will for our lives.
The Leadership of the Spirit of Christ. Children need to be led by a “tutor” as the scripture says in Galatians 4:1-7. But when we become mature sons and daughters we are led by the Spirit. It is the privilege of every child of Yahweh to have a personal relationship with the Spirit of Christ; allowing Him to teach and guide us each day into the character of Christ and His destiny for our lives. When we are led by the Spirit, we will have peace, follow biblical principles, and operate in the power of Yahweh.
Seek to develop your understanding of these three fundamental truths and you will succeed in all that Yahweh has destined for you.
I have been noticing all the times the number “3” in seen in scripture. This leads me to believe that the number “3” is important to Yahweh and His plan for bringing His Kingdom on Earth.
Mark 4:26-28 reveals that the Kingdom of Yahweh will advance in three stages to maturity, “first the blade, then the head, after that the full grain in the head.” “Harvest” takes place after the grain reaches the third stage of growth. Yahshua reveals the Kingdom of Yahweh operates in three phases to completion. This applies to every area of our life in the spiritual realm. For example:
§ Babyhood, childhood, manhood. § Thanksgiving, praise, worship. § Anointing within, anointing upon, glory. § Prophetic gifts, revelation gifts, power gifts. § Faith, hope, love. § Outer court, inner court, Holy of Holies. § Grace, great grace, abundant grace. § Righteous, peace, joy in the Spirit of Christ. § Milk, meat, strong meat of the Word.
On and on we could go with illustrations of “3s” from scripture.
This “third dimension” is the “greatest” as 1 Corinthians 13:13 reveals, “And now abide faith, hope, love these three; but the GREATEST of these is love.” Love is the “third” therefore suggesting that the “third dimension” is the greatest of all, representing spiritual maturity and the greatest of all God’s grace, mercy, and power.
Everything in the “third dimension” is the greatest such as worship, love, power, glory, and so on, and are all realized as part of “manhood in Christ.” Yahshua walked in the third “dimension” and manifested the “abundant life” He was promising to all who would become His disciples.
As it relates to “prayer” and the “Third Awakening”, prayer also has three dimensions that reflect the Kingdom as presented in the three rooms of the Tabernacle.
§ Outer Court – praying in English. § Inner Court – praying in other tongues. § Holy of Holies – wailing and groaning.
In order to enter the “third and greatest dimension” of prayer, we must go through the “veil of our flesh”; there must be the dying of self in order to live in the greatest dimension of the Kingdom of God. Going through the veil is the work of the Spirit of Christ in our lives bringing “brokenness” and full submission to the Father’s will, as is indicated by the “veil being torn from the top to bottom.” God begins and completes the work of “brokenness” in our lives until we are finally identified with Yahshua in His death for us preceded by His total surrender saying, “Not My will, but Thine be done.”
We have had two Great Awakenings in our Nation that preceded the social transformations that we experienced in our society. It is my opinion that the third (and final) Great Awakening will come as a result of “third dimension” prayer as well. Coming into the “third dimension” means bringing all things to “completion.” As we move from prayer in English to tongues, and finally to wailing and groanings, we will bring about the desired result. This cannot be done in the flesh but only with the Spirit of Christ within.
It is the level of prayer that is referred to in Zechariah 10:1 as “Latter Rain Prayer “, Elijah prayed this way in James 5:17-19 and brought about a great outpouring of power. As more and more believers allow Yahweh to move them into the third dimension of prayer, we will reach a “critical mass” of prayer that will give birth to the third great awakening and world harvest will be the result.
The third great awakening will come as a result of “third dimension” prayer. I don’t believe we will birth what God wants to bring to us by living in the outer court or inner court only as spiritual babies or adolescents. We must have the same level of maturity that Christ walked in (Ephesians 4:12-15). Maturity in Christ requires that we “go through the veil” and have a full surrender of our lives to Christ. As fully mature “sons and daughters” we will be fully acquainted with the third dimension of living in Christ, able to pray in all three dimensions and bring about the will of Yahweh on Earth. We are the people of “restoration” who “worship the Father in Spirit and Truth”, with full knowledge of the Word (Colossians 1:9-12) and of the Spirit’s operation (John 3:34; Ephesians 4:13).
I always find inspiration when I read the story of the Centurion’s faith in Matthew 8:5-11. No one starts the faith walk with “great faith” however, we all have been given a “measure of faith” that can grow as we gain revelation knowledge, believe, speak, and act on Yahweh’s Word.
Romans 12:3 (ESV) – For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
2 Thessalonians 1:3 – We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.
It is interesting to see that faith is “measurable” and can be increased to reach the fullest potential of “great faith.” Yahshua measured people’s faith when ministering to them. He would make statements like, “according to your faith be it done to you”, indicating that some people had greater faith than others. He also located the faith level of Peter in Matthew 14:31 when he said, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt.”
Peter tried to walk in the level of faith that Yahshua was operating in but was not quite ready to believe beyond the five-sense realm longer than a few minutes. The phrase “little faith” here actually means “faith that didn’t last long enough, or short faith.”
Yahshua not only measures our faith when we are wanting to receive from Yahweh, but He looks for faith when we approach Him as proved from the story of the paralytic who was lowered through a roof by his friends, “When He saw their faith”, Luke 5:20. Faith that can receive from Yahweh is so vital that Yahshua will be looking for it when He returns. “Will the Son of Man find faith on the earth when He comes.”Luke 18:8
There are four keys to develop “great faith” that we can see clearly in the life of the centurion who amazed Yahshua with his faith.
Recognition of the Lordship of Christ
Matthew 8:5-6– When he had entered Capernaum, a centurion came forward to him, appealing to him, 6 – “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering terribly.”
I remember someone saying that “if Yahshua isn’t Lord of all, He is not Lord at all.” A full surrender to Yahshua giving Him total reign over our lives is the first step to developing great faith.
Humility
Matthew 8:8 – But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.
Humility is a “proper estimation of self.” Pride is an “overestimation of self.” This centurion knew that he was not “deserving” of Yahweh’s help because of who he was or what he had done, but all that Yahweh does for us is done as a “free gift.”
Romans 8:32 – He who did not spare his own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things?
Understanding Yahweh’s Will
Matthew 8:7 – And he said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
We must be convinced of Yahweh’s will and pray in faith.
1 John 5:14-15 – And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, he hears us.15 And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of him.
Understanding the Nature of Faith
Matthew 8:8 – But the centurion replied, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come under my roof, but only say the word, and my servant will be healed.
“Say the Word only and my servant shall be healed.” Real faith requires no proof or evidence from the five senses; but believes with the heart. Faith is a “sixth sense” that is independent of the five physical senses. The man with great faith said in effect, “If you say it, it’s done.” He went his way believing his servant was healed before he ever saw him.
Notice what Jesus said in Matthew 8:13 – And to the centurion Jesus said, “Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” And the servant was healed at that very moment. In Matthew 8:10 – We read the astounding words of Yahshua affirming the level of faith of this Roman, “Truly, I tell you, with no one in Israel have I found such faith. Hebrews 11:6– And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who seek him.
1 – He went away from there and came to His hometown, and His disciples followed him.
2 – And on the Sabbath He began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were astonished, saying, “Where did this man get these things? What is the wisdom given to Him? How are such mighty works done by His hands?
3 – Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon? And are not His sisters here with us?” And they took offense at Him.
4 – And Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor, except in His hometown and among His relatives and in His own household.” 5
5 – And He could do no mighty work there, except that He laid His hands on a few sick people and healed them.
6 – And He marveled because of their unbelief. And He went about among the villages teaching.
I think fear is one of the largest hindrances to faith. If we are afraid, we don’t step out to do what Yahweh has called us to, but there are other things that can also keep us from walking in faith and doing all that Yahweh calls us to do.
I wonder sometimes why some people are healed instantly, some take time, and some it appears, are never healed. I know without doubt, thatYahweh wants His children to walk in health, so why don’t we? I certainly don’t have the answers, but I do know about some things, which can destroy our faith and perhaps delay healing.
The passage of scripture in Mark explains thatJesus only healed “a few sick people,” and revealed three “faith destroyers,” which I believe are part of the reason, we don’t see more healing.
1) OFFENSE
Becoming offended is a major weapon of Satan to cancel the effectiveness of faith in the life of a believer. Here the people were offended at “the preacher,” because they thought someone from such humble beginnings, couldn’t be used by Yahweh so powerfully. Becoming offended at the man or woman of Yahweh is all too common in the church and there are many believers who remain sick because of it. We should avoid offense, because it is spiritually poisonous. If we become offended, it begins a slow process of poisoning our whole system, until we begin to look for how everyone is going to “do us wrong” and we live a life dominated by strife.
What is the cure for “offense”? It is the Love of God, because “love does not take into account a wrong suffered” according to 1 CORINTHIANS 13. Learning to live with a forgiving attitude is love in action. E.W. Kenyon said, “A step out of love is a step into sin.”
2) WITHOUT HONOR
Just like walking in love is a key to having great faith, being an “honorable person” is just as important. The Bible tells us to “give honor to whom honor is due”, and “to give honor to all men.” Showing honor is a matter of respecting others at the level they deserve. All men deserve honor as human beings made in Yahweh’s Image.
3) UNBELIEF
The Bible plainly states that “unbelief” is evil in the sight of Yahweh, especially after being a witness to His mighty power in operation, HEBREWS 3:12. The word “unbelief” can be a result of “ignorance of the facts” which is not a sin, but the evil “unbelief” is being “unpersuadable,” due to hard-heartedness or being stiff necked. Jesus’ power was blocked in the above passage, because the people could not be persuaded to take Him at His Word, regardless of all the miracles they had witnessed. The only way to overcome an evil heart of unbelief, is full submission to Yahshua and acceptance of the Bible as the ‘INFALLIBLE WORD OF GOD.” (2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17). As we read, study, and listen to the Word of God, we will become “persuaded” to believe all that is written therein,as the Spirit of Christ brings illumination to truth.
My prayer is that we, watch and guard ourselves, from these three “faith destroyers” of Offense, Dishonor, and Unbelief.
Yahweh wants us to operate in our full “faith potential,” which is “great faith” and walk in the realm of the miraculous.
Last Friday night in forum we talked about our favorite scriptures, talked about God’s love for us, so we wanted to share those scriptures with you and some of our thoughts as well.
John 15:16 – You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. (ESV)
John 3:16 – For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. (ESV)
It is hard to fathom that kind of love. We need to be telling ALL who come across our path about this kind of Love.
Zephaniah 3:17 – The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; He will quiet you by his love; He will exult over you with loud singing. (ESV)
This scripture was the favorite of a couple of people mine being one. It is one of my favorite scriptures because when God looks at us, He has joy and He sings over us. In my mind’s eye, I can just see Him singing over me and hear the words that He is saying. I don’t know about you but when I realize He is singing over me I want to sing back to Him. Take time to think about the words that Yahshua might be singing over you and what will you sing back to Him.
I John 4:7 – 11 – Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. (ESV)
I think about this scripture a lot because it is basically saying that we will LOVE others if we love God and that we are not loving to others then perhaps we do not know God as much as we might think we do. Ouchy! I think the reality is that we are not able to truly love if we have not first experienced God’s love and have Yahshua/Jesus Christ living within us.
The last scripture we looked at is 1 Corinthians 13. Many calls it the “love chapter” which is pretty accurate. It tells us what love is and what it isn’t and reminds us that the greatest thing of ALL is LOVE!
I Corinthians 13 – If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,] but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant
5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (ESV)
My desire is to always live my life in such a way that it demonstrates God’s love to everyone who crosses my path. I want to love those that are not quite as easy to love as much as I love those that are easier. I don’t know about you, but when I get frustrated with someone a lot of times my first thought is not always that “love is long-suffering” but it should be.
Do I remember that “love feeds the poor” when someone crosses my path that is hungry? Feed the poor is not only physical hunger but should be spiritual hunger as well. We need to feed those that have not welcomed Yahushua/Jesus Christ into live in their lives.
We need to remember that if we truly love others as God has commanded us to do, we will also share the truths that He reveals to us even when it goes against what we have “been taught” in church! May we no longer be silent!
Friday night as I sat in the forum, I looked at the group that was there and thought about how different we are, but yet we come together to learn more about Yahweh, discover our destiny and train to walk in our calling. We are a community, but what exactly is community? Last night, we had a former country music singer that is now the president of a growing ministry, a lady that has been to hell and back who watches over us as gatekeeper. There was a lady from Alaska that brings joy and encouragement when she walks in the room, a man who is strong in the Lord and the list could go on and on. We are all different but, yet Yahweh has brought us together as the Firestorm community.
When you came to Firestorm what were you looking for? I have learned over the years that we don’t really get to “pick” our community. Yahweh does that. Who knew that when I “somehow” ended up in the “wrong” AIM chat room over 20 years ago I would become a part of the Firestorm “community?”
The reality is that you can’t order a community to your exact liking dimensions. C. S. Lewis once said, “The Church is not a human society of people united by their natural affinities, but we are the Body of Christ in which all members however different (and Yahweh rejoices in our differences) must share the common life, complementing, helping and receive one another precisely by their differences.
I Corinthians 12:12
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
Ephesians 4:16
Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
We see in the above scriptures that we are ALL different parts of the same body, and because we are different, we are able to complement and help each other. When we are all doing our part and contributing to the body, we enable the body to grow. So, what does it look like for a community of Christians to actually do this?
The Focus of Community
Recently Bonnie and I have talked a good bit about how to describe “Firestorm.” I asked Bonnie to come up with a “meta tag” which is used to describe Firestorm in just a few words for the search engines. The “meta tag” she came up with is “Are you Prophetic? What is your calling in Christ? Join us & find out. Online Prophecy/Prayer Training & Equipping thru Video Stream forums & Website articles.” So, what is the goal of Firestorm and what is it is purpose? Firestorm’s purpose is to “prophetically train and equip the saints.” This provides clarity of what Firestorm is so if you choose to become a part of Firestorm you are coming to each other and to this vision.
Looking at the big picture:
The Commandment:
Matthew 22:36 – 39
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?”37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
The Commission:
Matthew 28:18 – 20
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
The Day-to-Day of Community
The Bible also specifies how Christians are supposed to interact with each other. On a practical level, the one-another statements in Scripture teach us how to be this community that loves the Lord, loves our neighbors, and makes disciples. These “one another’s” are how the big picture plays out on a daily basis:
Accept one another (Rom 15:7)
Admonish one another (Col 3:16)
Be devoted to one another (Rom 12:10)
Be honest with one another (Col 3:9)
Be kind and compassionate to one another (Eph 4:32)
Be of the same mind with one another (Rom 12:16)
Bear one another’s burdens (Gal 6:2)
Bear with one another (Eph 4:2)
Build up one another (1 Thess 5:11)
Care for one another (1 Cor 12:25)
Comfort one another (1 Thess 4:18)
Confess sins to one another (Jas 5:16)
Encourage one another (1 Thess 5:11)
Exhort one another (Heb 3:13)
Fellowship with one another (1 Jn 1:7)
Forgive one another (Eph 4:32)
Greet one another (2 Cor 13:12)
Honor one another above yourselves (Rom 12:10)
Instruct one another (Rom 15:14)
Love one another (Jn 13:34; Rom 13:8)
Offer hospitality to one another (1 Pet 4:9)
Pray for one another (Jas 5:16)
Pursue peace and build up one another (Rom 14:19)
Serve one another (Gal 5:13)
Spur on one another to love and good deeds (Heb 10:24)
Submit to one another (Eph 5:21)
Obeying the one another’s is how we grow biblical community. It is the New Testament model for what it looks like to be the church, and only “when each part is working properly” does the “body grow so that it builds itself up in love” (Eph 4:16). Each part––each Christ-follower–– must contribute. As we strive to obey God’s commands, we must also keep in mind that community (in and of itself) is not the ultimate goal for Christians, but it does occur when we as believers come alongside each other to glorify God and to make disciples.
Yahweh designed His people to gather faithfully and to connect meaningfully. This community is a good gift from God, but it is also one that we each cultivate by our commitment and contributions. Yahweh intends for us to care for one another and help each other mature spiritually and, in doing these things, to stand as a compelling example of community to an unsaved world. Together we make up the “Firestorm community” that Yahweh is putting into place to “prophetically train and equip the saints” to reach the world and WE NEED your part to function correctly.
How to Prepare for Challenges & Changes
Becca Card
We are living in times of great challenges and many changes that we will all be facing in the future. An important question we must be asking now is, “How do we prepare for these challenges and changes?”
One foundational truth we must understand is, everything that happens to us, and ultimately everything that happens in the world, is under the sovereignty of Yahweh. The Bible refers to Yahweh as Lord and KING, because He is the final authority and always has the last word.
Understanding the sovereignty of Yahweh can give us a great sense of comfort if we learn how to, “Trust in the Lord with all of your heart, and not lean upon your own understanding, acknowledge Him in all your ways, then He will direct your paths” (Prov. 3:5-6).
Two things stand out for me in this verse: Trust with your heart and don’t trust your understanding. We often fail to understand the reasons why certain things happen or don’t happen and if we are not careful, we can fall into the spiritual trap of allowing our hearts to harden toward the Lord.
Many have fallen prey to the devil’s accusations about the character and love of Yahweh, because they could not reconcile the goodness of a loving, all-powerful God and the pain, wickedness or evil, which befell them or others and caused their hearts to harden. Thus, they stopped trusting the Lord and turn away from loving Him.
If we learn how to process our pain and offer Yahweh our lives in a deeper and more profound way, we will find ourselves united with Him in a way that is utterly different than anything we have experienced before. Words will fail to describe it.
Isaiah 40:31, teaches us, that they who “wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”
The Hebrew word kav’ah translated as ‘wait’ is better translated as ‘bind together.’ The real sense of this verse is that those who are bound together with the Lord, united with Him, tied tightly to Him, or even ‘twisted together’ like the fringes on the Tallit (Jewish prayer shawl), will be renewed in their strength. What a wonderful word picture.
Let your life be so joined to the Lord, so united to Him, that you will be able to mount up like an eagle and rise far above all of your earthly situations and receive new strength enabling you to walk through your circumstances and never become weary or discouraged. You can keep trusting, even when you don’t understand.
The Bible says that Yahshua Himself, “learned obedience through His suffering” (Heb.5:8) and as a result of this process of “learning obedience,” He overcame His suffering and “received a name that is above every name.” He is now the “source of eternal salvation to those who obey Him,” and eventually “every knee will bow and declare that Messiah Jesus is Lord” (Phil. 2:11).
Just as Yahshua was rewarded for His obedience, so the scripture promises us a reward. In Rev. 3:21, Jesus declares to us, that if we overcome, as He overcame, then we “will sit on His throne with Him, even as He sits on the throne with the Father.”
I do not think we can really fathom what this means. Paul writes in 1 Cor. 2:9, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” The reward for our obedience is beyond our ability to conceive.
One of the ways we learn obedience is, as if we die to ourselves, surrender more and more of our hearts and our wills to Yahweh, we receive an ever-deepening relationship with Him.
This process is really the heart of what is called discipleship and it is highly prized by the Lord. The reason it is so highly prized is because at the end of this process, you are a mature person who God can entrust with authority in His Kingdom and responsibility over His possessions.
Jesus made this very clear in His parables of the talents (Matt. 25:14-30, Luke 19:11-27), and also in His promise that the “overcomers” will sit on His throne with Him. Paul also referred to this in Romans 8:17 and 2 Tim. 2:12, where He spoke of the Lord’s promise that those who are faithful and obedient, will reign with Him.
With this in mind, we should look at each and every situation from a kingdom/ discipleship perspective. We should ask ourselves this question: “What is the lesson I am to learn through this?” We should then ask the Spirit of Christ to reveal to us what the Lord wants us to learn and how we should be reacting and responding. Then we can learn, change and grow as disciples, whom the King can entrust with His possessions and His authority, to rule and reign with Him.
As part of the process of learning obedience we have to learn how to magnify the Lord. In our flesh we tend to only see and talk about the negative and magnify those things. Listen to what people talk about and how they talk about those things. Their conversations magnify what they are thinking about, making them it bigger and bigger.
As a spiritual discipline we must magnify the Lord by talking about Him, His goodness, His mercy and His loving kindness. When you do this, you will discover that your inner life is strengthened, your faith is built up and you generally feel encouraged.
It is extremely important to have fellowship in the Spirit and in the light with other believers. We truly need each other, but you must manage those relationships and those conversations. Do not let them go in directions, which are not in the Spirit or in the light, therefore not edifying (i.e. they do not correct, instruct or encourage you). You must take charge of what you hear and what you say.
You must both guard your heart by not letting people put toxic words into your ears. And if you do hear them, do not let those poisonous words get into your thoughts or influence your feelings. Do not allow toxic thoughts to be created in your own mind; cast them out! If you have not yet cast them out, do not let them take root. If they have already taken root, then pull them out like weeds.
One of the ways we do this is by “casting down every vain imagination” and “making every thought obey Christ” (2 Cor.10:5, my paraphrase). Those vain imaginations are the pictures in your mind that create negative feelings in your soul and can even create negative effects in your body. Remember this, “As a person thinks in their heart, so they will be” (Prov. 23:7). If you think good thoughts, you will have good feelings. If you think bad thoughts, you will have bad feelings. If you practice this, you will find that it works!
The Spirit of Christ has been given to enable you to overcome everything you face. Trust Him to do that. Stay in worship, in the word and in prayer, and watch Yahweh work!! The promise of Yahweh is sure, “He who has begun a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Phil. 1:6). He started His work in you, and He will bring it to completion.
May you continue to grow in the love and deepen in your knowledge of Yahweh.
The Spirit of Christ is faithfully working in our lives leading and guiding every step if we listen and obey. While most of us recognize the importance of standing with Israel as a country we don’t all understand the biblical relationship the Church is to have with Jewish people.
There are those who seek to prevent restoration by proclaiming a doctrine that keeps the Church in a persecutorial role in relationship with the Jewish people. This doctrine is certainly not Biblical. They teach the Church has replaced the Jewish people in the purposes of Yahweh.
Through this, Christians are taught that Yahweh has finished His dealings with natural Israel (both the land and the people), and that He is now only concerned with the Church. It boldly declares that the Church is now the “new Israel.” At best, Christians have been taught that the Jewish people and the nation of Israel are to be viewed like any other nation, with no Biblical or prophetic significance. At worst, Christians have been taught that it was their responsibility to persecute the Jews as a testimony of the wrath of God.
This theology teaches that the Church is to be thought of as the “New” Israel. They are taught they have inherited all of the promises of blessings made to the Jewish people and land of Israel. They are taught that when the Bible speaks of Yahweh blessing the Jewish people, He really means the Gentile church. Oddly enough when Yahweh speaks of judgment instead of blessing, this theology quickly reverses itself and declares that Yahweh is speaking to the Jewish people, or the land of Israel. Therefore, all the blessings are for the Church, and all the curses for the Jews. This theology has been the root cause of centuries of Christian persecution of the Jewish people. It has bred innumerable insidious doctrines that have manifested themselves in the worst kinds of hatred and evil.
How different history would have been had the Church discerned the spirit which propagated this great lie and rejected it, before it could have its disastrous effects. Torn from her “anointed roots” of faith (Romans 11:17), the church descended into the spiritual darkness of hierarchical sacramentalism, imperialistic motivations, and carnal power politics.
Instead of taking the gospel of salvation in the name of Yahshua to all the nations, the church began to sweep pagans into her organizational web of sacramental rituals, taking the power of the sword of steel rather than the sword of the Spirit as the legitimizer of her actions. No longer capable of imparting Biblical faith, the only authentic, legitimate legacy of the church (i.e. preaching the word of God which creates faith in the heart of the hearer – Romans 10:17), she illicitly substituted humanly devised forms and rituals for the supernatural reality of the “new birth” (John 3:3,7 & 1 Peter 1:23).
Non-Christians were baptized not because they had a true spiritual rebirth, but because it became the way into the politically and socially accepted religion. The Lord Jesus ceased to be the head of the church, and the usurper, the devil himself, became the illegitimate head of the now perverted “Christian church.” This counterfeit church had as its goal what satan has always wanted, the worship of those who were created to worship the one true God. Since satan was a murderer from the beginning, this “church” did not give a second thought to shedding the blood of all those who dared stand in her way of world domination. Not only did this grotesque perversion persecute the Jews, but all who dared oppose it were murdered, as Foxes Book of Martyrs so vividly attests. The once pure Church of Yahshua was completely transfigured into an unrecognizable murderer who would stop at nothing to accomplish the goals of her satanic master. The devil, knowing Yahweh’s plan to use the Church to provoke Israel to jealousy, had thus far succeeded in so distorting the “faith once delivered to the saints,” that the Jewish people were only too glad to reject such an idol worshipping, blood shedding abomination.
How could anything that evil and malignant come from the God of Israel?” they reasoned. “How could the “Jesus” they claim to believe in be our Messiah? Whatever He is, whoever He was, He is not the promised Messiah, for certainly our Messiah could not, or would not, inflame His followers with such hatred and evil.” The plan of the devil had succeeded: A perverted Church persecuting the Jews in the name of Jesus – Jesus, the name the Jewish nation must believe in before He can return to destroy the devil. A master stroke of evil genius!
The Jewish people would never come to faith in the one whose supposed followers persecuted and killed them. But…God said in Psalm 102:13-16, that there would come an appointed time when He would arise and have mercy upon Zion, when His servants would feel pity for Zion’s stones and compassion for her dust. This is the hour that God is arising! He is working in the hearts of believers all over the world.
He is restoring the Church to the proper New Testament understanding of her “grafted in” position. He is restoring the Church to a recognition of her Jewish roots. He is stirring believers around the world to bring outpourings of love, support and testimony to Israel. The Jewish people will experience the “True Church,” demonstrating the kind of love and power that will provoke them to faith. The truth, which always brings freedom, is that the Church has been grafted into relationship with Israel and has NOT replaced Israel.
Because satan saw the power that Yahweh would release by the creation of a supernatural relationship between Jews and Gentiles, he has vigorously and thus far successfully, opposed the fulfillment of this Biblical plan.
In these days, Yahweh is restoring to the Church an understanding of this divine relationship. Gentile believers are understanding that they have been grafted into Israel’s olive tree and are partaking of the rich roots of the faith of the patriarchs.
In the realization that the Church is sharing this “root,” new relationships, new dynamics of communication and understanding are able to take place. Yahweh has always intended that there be a flow of communication, testimony, and love between the “cultivated” and “wild” branches as a demonstration of His Kingdom. He will yet bring to pass such interactions and relationships. There is coming a day in which the Church around the world will see and understand her proper relationship with the Jewish people and will act to establish lines of communication in which the true testimony of Messiah will be demonstrated and understood. Yahshua, who has been so maligned and distorted by the wiles of the devil, will be seen and understood for who He really is. The reconciliation of the Church to her Jewish Roots will result in the establishment of interaction between Christians and Jews.
These international dialogues will continually break down barriers of distortion and establish bridges of relationship. What Yahweh intended for the Church in the beginning, will come to pass at the end. Gentile believers, the grafted in wild branches, will be in a relationship with the Jewish people that is free of religious and racial prejudice, where true dialogue and sharing can take place.
The ultimate fruit of an “grated in theology” will be the creation of a spiritual environment where the true testimony of Yahshua and the manifestation of the Spirit of Christ can take place. Instead of hatred and conflict, there can be love and dialogue. Instead of murder and mayhem, there can be mutually beneficial and fruitful harmony. Instead of a satanically inspired history of persecution and death, there will arise a divinely inspired and empowered future filled with the demonstration of the power and fruit of the Spirit of Christ.
The ultimate fruit of “replacement theology” was manifested in the Holocaust. The spiritual roots of the Holocaust can be seen in the ways in which this demonic theology allowed the church to take one of two basic positions in relation to the Jewish people: ignore them or persecute them. The vast majority of the church just ignored the plight of the Jewish people, as the Nazi death machine sought to fulfill satan’s plan to kill them all. These attitudes continue today.
Where is the outcry of the Church on behalf of national Israel? Do you believe that the Bible promises the land to the Jews? Do you believe that their regathering is part of the fulfillment of prophecy? If you believe it, are you doing anything about it? While many Christians do not like the idea of Gentile believers calling themselves “spiritual Jews,” I believe that this is an accurate appellation. For Jewish believers, the difficulty with this terminology is that the history of those who called themselves “spiritual Jews” has been one of “replace and persecute,” not “grated in and relate.”
For Gentile believers, it is a lack of true understanding often times coupled with traces of anti-Semitism. In the past those who called themselves “spiritual Jews” did it with the erroneous understanding that they were the “new” or “spiritual” Israel, having rejected and replaced the natural Jewish people.
If only they had rightly understood that they were in fact “spiritual Jews,” but in the true biblical sense. They were grafted-in alongside the natural branches, and together should have worshipped the God of Israel, partaking of the covenants, and enjoying citizenship in the commonwealth of Israel. They would have also understood that their position had been given to them by Yahweh, so they could partake of Israel’s rich spiritual heritage and provoke the Jewish people to spiritual jealousy through their love and the supernatural demonstration of the gifts and fruits of the Spirit of Christ.
Yahweh uses the concept of being “grafted in” to illustrate the close relationship that Gentile believers were to continually maintain with the Jewish people. This ongoing relationship was to be cultivated so that the Jewish people could receive a loving testimony to the truthfulness of the Messianic claims of Yahshua, as the Church demonstrated the love and the power of the Spirit of Christ.
Because the church grew arrogant against the branches and was severed from the roots of faith, she was unable to maintain a testimony of the power of the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit of Christ’s power began to wane in the church and the church turned to false doctrines and traditions to justify its powerlessness.
It is sad that today many denominations have the same “theological rationalizations” for their own lack of power. As Yahweh restores believers to their Biblical relationship with the Jewish people, I believe that there will be a concurrent increase in the demonstration of the power of the Spirit of Christ. Yahweh intends to provoke the Jewish people to spiritual jealousy and faith in Yahshua by the demonstration of the love and power of the Spirit of Christ in the Church. This is going to happen because it is Yahweh’s plan.
