Can we get down to the nitty-gritty for a few minutes? The Word of God is quick and sharper than any two edged sword and we sometimes wield it like children running with scissors. We are quick to quote a Scripture which uses words which we believe meets the moment, but then some time later we find that we've used it out of context. Or we continue believing the lie that we understood it properly and build internal theology around a misconception. Our God is gracious and He will not come down on us like an unjust judge wishing to get rid of us. But He will allow us to walk in the error until we put in the due diligence to find it. That is how so much of the error we all have in our understanding of Him occurs and goes on for so long that by the time someone opens our eyes we've lived decades in wrong understanding and wondering why our prayers aren't answered, or our situation isn't changed, or the healing didn't happen when we prayed for someone, etc., etc., ect.
I've waited to say this, but now feel it can wait no longer. Remember when I said I had been taught that all believers made up the "church" and because of that, they were also the Ekklesia? Then in the last two chapters I've said the Ekklesia are accurately described as all Jewish and Gentile believers in Yeshua/Jesus as Messiah. What I haven't said yet is that while those seem like the very same thing, and to some degree they are, the importance is the difference in perspective it brings. The perspective I was given was that all those believers make up "The Church". Now, I know differently. They do not make up the church. The church is a man-made institution created by a hierarchical government which transformed the defining characteristics of "Ekklesia" into an identical hierarchical government thus birthing the Church-State of Rome. Times have changed and the Reformation has built a wall of resistance against the Church-State but left the hierarchy in place. They only changed the names. Now-a-days we call them the 5-Fold and view them as the new hierarchy. The interpretation of the role or positions each member plays has for the most part remained the same since the 3rd-4th centuries. In many ways, the Dominionist Movement is now doing the very same thing. But instead of keeping the same hierarchy, they are redefining those roles of the Body-Bride based on a post-millennial worldview. NOW, more than ever, it is essential to know the source of someone's belief system and weigh it against the Word and the Word alone to understand what they mean when they speak. When I say things like "we must learn to co-labor with heaven and follow the agenda of the Kingdom in real-time"; I mean we CAN and SHOULD be in a constant place of heart submission to our Father and seeking what the Kingdom of Heaven wants done on earth at any given time and position ourselves to participate in the agenda by saying and doing what our Heavenly Father, His Son, and Holy Spirit guide us to.
Reading The First 6 Parts of this is Advisable to
fully understand the context of this Chapter.
That same statement by a Dominionist means something quite different. To varying degrees they will mean that we know we are to take over the 7 Mountains of society: Business, Entertainment, Education, Religion, Family, and Government. They would mean that we should employ the same level of cunning as the serpent did therefore we will be fulfilling the "be wise as serpents" part of Jesus' directions. Like the cunning (but dishonest) servant of Luke 16:8. The part they seem to forget is that the cunning of the serpent led to the Fall, and the other half of Yeshua/Jesus' statement was "and as harmless as doves". He showed us what He meant by that statement when He never let the religious leaders corner Him with a trivial argument to try and prove their dominance to the crowd. He used questions Himself which if answered truthfully would have revealed the hearts of His attackers. Without the "harmless as doves" we can easily find ourselves employing the tactics of the world just as the world does and missing Abba's heart in thee matter completely. Without the harmless as doves, He could have called fire from heaven and just done away with the naysayers and religious elite.
What is God's Love Language?
In the last chapter I mentioned Loving God in His Love Language. Over the years, I've heard a lot of messages on LOVE. Here are a few topics I can recall right away:
God is LOVE so when He enters our hearts, we know REAL LOVE for the first time
The love of God has been so great toward us that while we were yet sinners He sent His Son to die for us.
The world will know you by the LOVE you have for one another
No greater LOVE hath any man than to lay down his life for his friends
If I speak with the tongues of men or angels, but have not LOVE then I am a tinkling cymbal and sounding brass
LOVE walks the extra mile and gives up its cloak when ask for a coat
LOVE never fails
LOVE speaks no evil
Of course the exposition of all of 1 Corinthians 13
That should be sufficient...
One that I have NEVER heard from any ministry that I have ever attended, even those I spent decades with, is John 14:15-26
“If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper so He may be with you forever — the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not behold Him or know Him. You know Him, because He abides with you and will be in you. I will not abandon you as orphans; I will come to you. In a little while, the world will no longer behold Me, but you will behold Me. Because I live, you also will live! “In that day, you will know that I am in My Father, you are in Me, and I am in you. He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me. He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him.” Judah (not the one from Kriot) said to Him, “Master, what has happened, that You are about to reveal Yourself to us and not the world?” Yeshua answered and said to him, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words. And the word you hear is not Mine, but the Father’s who sent Me. These things I have spoken to you while dwelling with you. But the Helper, the Ruach ha-Kodesh whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you everything and remind you of everything that I said to you. (Tree of Life Version) (emphasis mine)
We need to open our eyes to the entirety of Scripture and realize that if any part of it contradicts another, it is our perception which causes the apparent contradiction. We may be reading a poor translation, from corrupt manuscripts. We may have been taught an image of God, His Word, His Son, Holy Spirit, or something else which was the tradition of men and not from God at all. Concerning this, let's consider Paul's writings about "the Law". We often immediately equate those portions of Paul's writings with Torah, or even the entire "Old Testament". But we neglect, or maybe we are ignorant of the fact, that there was more than one set of "Laws" in the religious system of Judaism in the time of Yeshua and through the lives of the Apostles just as there are now. The Pharisees believed in the Written Law or Torah of Moses. The Sadducees believed in the Oral Law. We now call it the Talmud. It's no longer just an Oral Law. There are even books to interpret the interpretation of the Talmud (again formerly known as the Oral Law); the Mishnah and Midrash are for learning to interpret and apply the Talmud to daily living and they are given way to much credence. In reality the Torah stands above them all even in modern Judaism, but it is taught as a support to Torah and in many ways those other books are followed as if just as authoritative. In Yeshua's day, and that of the First Century believers much of the what is now the Talmud were the takkanot. Paul wasn't attacking Torah, he was attacking the Oral Law/Traditions of the Elders and Sages/Takkanot. Just as Yeshua/Jesus did, except Paul was like a whistle-blower, a former insider giving the rest of the people a head's up on the "secret societies" of his day. So, you see once again just how important perspective is. Now those parts of Scripture don't seem so out of place do they?
Remember what I said about takkanot? They are rules that important rabbis would make, probably while sitting on the literal Seat of Moses, in the synagogue and it became "LAW". The problem is that it changed the way Scripture was perceived and understood. Now that I've expounded a bit more on the other writings, which were really the oral traditions of the elders or sages in the "New Testament", perhaps you can see why Yeshua came to teardown the man-made law, but never touched one "jot or tittle" (smallest of punctuation) of Torah and the Prophets. It's not legalism or bondage to be Torah Observant. It is actually the FREEDOM from all the man-made junk that will keep us from walking in the fullness of the teachings of Yeshua and the Apostles. Torah, when properly understood through the teachings of Yeshua/Jesus and the disciples brings us the "perfection" beyond the "first principles of the Doctrine of Christ" from Hebrews 6 and Revelation 11! If we want to walk in the lifestyle He has ordained for us, then we should be seeing all of the things we see happening in Mark 16:17 & 18, Matthew 10: 1 & 8, Hebrews 6:1-4, and Revelation 11: 5 & 6. If we aren't seeing this it is likely we have not properly positioned ourselves to allow the "virtue" which flowed through the "vine" to enter our lives and work through us.. I cover this alignment and a lot of other important information which will make this even more clear in the two videos below.
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Revelation 11:3
"...And I will grant authority to My two witnesses and they will prophesy for 1,260 days, dressed in sackcloth.” (Tree of Life Version)
Jeremiah 16:19
"YHVH
, my strength, my stronghold, my refuge in the day of affliction, to You will the nations come from the ends of the earth and say: 'Our fathers have inherited nothing but lies, futility and useless things.'” (Tree of Life Version- Corrected to replace Adonai with the tetragrammaton to match the original manuscripts)
So, it seems many of us have some serious things to pray about, regarding our perception of who we are and how we fit in. We need now to decide if we will choose to humble ourselves and go back to what we've walked away from. To leave behind the tankot, both ancient and modern, and embrace Him and His mitzvot (commands). He is longsuffering, He will be patient and gentle to guide you, if you are humble and willing to position yourself for the "power and authority which is to come". If you are willing to let go of anything which cannot be fully supported by the totality of Scripture, and which contradicts any part of Scripture, then also search out what His Word truly says - I am confident He will position you to walk in the fullness of what He has for the Ekklesia. We must all put on sackcloth my friends, repent for believing what He never said and for following any takkanot we have. To be exalted we must humble ourselves - lest we find Him doing the humbling, whom He loves he disciplines and that can be very humbling. We must loose from ourselves any and all man-made traditions and religion and bind ourselves fully to His Word, His Will, and His Love using His Love Language. We are nearing the final push. This baby is about to be birthed, are you ready?
Can we, as Christians educated with the particular doctrine of our denominations, humble ourselves and repent of all the lies we have believed from the fathers of our particular faith? Can we allow our eyes to be opened by Abba YHVH so we can see the "New Testament" through its fulfillment of the "Old Testament" and not that it did away with it?
Can we accept 1 John 3:4?
"Everyone who sins breaks God's law, because sin is breaking God's law."
(Contemporary English Version)
"Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law." (King James Version)
In the next chapter we will take a look at how the 5-Fold of Ephesians 4 fits into this picture now that we've cleared the rubble and know how every believer "rightly fits".
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