Thursday, July 1, 2010

I'm in You, You are in Me

We are a fragmented Body of believers. It has been a great concern of mine that we having to exist while being separated by distance. I greatly miss the fellowship and visitation with my family in YHWH. Sometimes because of this problem, I get separation anxiety. I can’t wait until the next opportunity to be with my brethren. All of this division is quite simply a curse.
“And YHWH shall scatter you among all peoples, from one end of the earth to the other, and there you shall serve other mighty ones, which neither you nor your fathers have known, wood and stone. “And among those nations you are to find no rest, nor have a resting place for the sole of your foot. But there YHWH shall give you a trembling heart, and failing eyes, and sorrow of being. “And your life shall be hanging in suspense before you, and you shall fear day and night, and not be certain of your life.
(Deu 28:64-66)
Our sin was what caused us to become scattered to the four corners of the Earth.
“I (YHWH) said, ‘I should blow them away, I should make the remembrance of them To cease from among men,
(Deu 32:26)
It was literally as if YHWH blew us to the North, South, East and West; just like it was feared would happen at Babylon.
And they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens, and make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered over all the face of the earth.”
(Gen 11:4)
To this day, because of our sin, we remain scattered abroad. This makes it very hard sometimes because we feel alone. Some Shabbats I look around the room at our three families (11 people) and wonder how much better it would be with 30 or dare I say 60 people. Then I realize there are single families and sometimes individual people meeting with YHWH every week.
So if the curse was to scatter Israel, then the baruch (blessing) must be to gather Israel. This gathering occurs when we return (shoob in Hebrew), and we return by the act of teshuvah (repentance). To repent one must make a 180 degree turn and walk away the other direction. There is no looking back in true repentance. If we are blessed by returning to the House of Israel, shouldn’t our Shepherd be the one leading us back?
And He (Yahshua) answering, said, “I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Yisraʼĕl.”
(Mat 15:24)
Have you read the parable of “The Lost Sheep”? Evidently, we have been really confused when it comes to the work the Messiah came to do. We have been taught He came to “do away” with the law and teach us to love everybody. But Yahshua Himself clearly states His ministry was one of restoration NOT revolution! So after Yahshua ascended and left his talmidim (disciples) here, how was this restoration work to continue? Wouldn’t there be a need for a servant/Spirit to comfort and assist us?
And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Ruach of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.
Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also. At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.
(Joh 14:16-20)
So, Yahshua did say He would send us a Comforter, a Helper, a Servant if you will. Not in the sense that we are master, but this Ruach (Spirit) would have a Master. Is there a story in Torah that will point to this Spiritual Truth?
Abraham had a servant who was very important in his day to day functions.
And Aḇram said, “Master יהוה, what would You give me, seeing I go childless, and the heir of my house is Eliʽezer of Damascus?”
(Gen 15:2)
Here we see that the head servant or heir of the childless Abraham was Eli’ezer. In Hebrew Eli’ezer has a very thought provoking definition – “El of help” or “the help of El.” It would go without saying that the servant would do the work of the Father.
In Genesis chapter 24, this same bond servant is commissioned to do a very special job; he is sent to find a bride for the groom (the son). The help of El (Eli’ezer) travels out into the nations to where the family of Abraham still lived. They hadn’t crossed over (Hebrew) as Abraham had into YHWH’s land. This was a very important job given to a dedicated servant. So we see the servant’s job is: (1.) Go find a Bride for the Groom. (2.) Test all applicants to ensure they qualify. (3.) Purchase the Bride. (4.) Bring the Bride and preparing her as you return. These are the functions of the Ruach today. It seeks and saves the lost that pass the test (water test) by seeking. The Ruach delivers the earnest for the purchase of the Bride. The bond servant then brings the Bride back to her home and people preparing her as they go. Do you see these Spiritual applications?
For now, let’s focus on this Comforter or Ruach that Yahshua said the Father would send us. One (Echad) ruach, not multiple servants or spirits; one Spirit, one job, one purpose, to prepare one Bride. By having one Spirit this will allow singular focus and bring unity to the body. YHWH has always been about unity. Let’s look at some earthly examples YHWH gave us of unity among a large and diverse body.
When Israel came out of Mitzarim (Egypt) they were a large group of people, over a million strong. Each family had tasks and responsibilities they had to accomplish within their clan (family group). Each clan had tasks and responsibilities they had to fulfill within their tribe. Each tribe had tasks and responsibilities they had to perform within the Body of Israel. Just one member of one family of one clan of one tribe within the Nation not performing as needed throws a monkey wrench in the whole system. Talk about unity! This type of harmony builds confidence within each person; you feel needed and important, because you are. Each individual has singular vision within the working Body.

As intricate as the Nation of Israel was, the office of cohen was also intricate and detailed. Every cohen had a function and purpose. You were required to be at certain stations at specific times to perform important tasks. One cohen not cooperating as needed causes a breakdown in the system. But we see that the cohen kept unity and cohesiveness allowing YHWH to work through them as needed.
We could also look at the Battle of Yerikho or the YHWH ordained system of tithing, all of these are physical manifestations of a Spiritual principal at work. When a corporate body focuses on a singular purpose, putting all selfish motives aside, mighty and miraculous things are accomplished.
The key element to any of these things happening is the heart of the individual. Without the leb (heart) of an ebed (servant), no one is capable of working at this level. Attitude is everything!! The old saying is “too many chiefs and not enough Indians.” In other words, everyone wants to be boss and get the glory while sitting behind their tennis court sized desk and bossing the peons around. Somebody has to clean the toilets, mop the floor and take out the trash. Somebody has to be responsible and take the blame when things go wrong. That is the true definition of a leader – being a servant. When ALL of YHWH’s children get the heart of a servant, we will see change.
Abraham was a servant.
and (Abraham)said, “יהוה, if I have now found favour in Your eyes, please do not pass Your servant by.
(Gen 18:3)
What made Abraham a servant?
1. Abraham was willing to forsake everyone and all to follow his Elohim.
2. Abraham lived a life of shema-ing YHWH.
3. Abraham walked by emunah (faith) and not by his earthly sight.
4. Abraham made mistakes but quickly took the blame and teshuva.
So we see four key elements to being a servant of YHWH. Become Set Apart (Kodesh) to YHWH, hear and do what YHWH says, allow YHWH to be Master and just trust Him, while always having a heart for teshuvah. Because Abraham was YHWH’s servant others were blessed.
Gen 26:24 And YHWH appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the Elohim of your father Aḇraham. Do not fear, for I am with you, and shall bless you and increase your seed for My servant Aḇrahamʼs sake.”
David was a servant.
“And now, do it! For יהוה has spoken of Dawiḏ, saying, ‘By the hand of My servant Dawiḏ, I save My people Yisraʼĕl from the hand of the Philistines and the hand of all their enemies.ʼ ”
(2Sa 3:18)
What made David a servant?
1. David was willing to put all aspirations (even justified ones) aside and wait on YHWH.
2. David lived a life of shema-ing YHWH.
3. David walked by emunah.
4. David made mistakes but quickly took the blame and teshuva.
Here again we see the same four basic traits. Is this a coincidence? Check out Job, he was a servant of YHWH. All of these traits are essential to being a servant of YHWH. When does one become a servant of YHWH and no longer a slave to sin?

Do you not know that to whom you present yourselves servants for obedience, you are servants of the one whom you obey, whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness? But thanks to Elohim that you were servants of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of teaching to which you were entrusted. And having been set free from sin, you became servants of righteousness.
(Rom 6:16-18)

For do I now persuade men, or Elohim? Or do I seek to please men? For if I still pleased men, I should not be a servant of Messiah.
(Gal 1:10)

In Romans 1:1 Shaul calls himself a bond servant. What is a bond servant as opposed to a slave?

“These are the right-rulings which you are to set before them: “When you buy a Heḇrew servant, he serves six years, and in the seventh he goes out free, for naught. “If he comes in by himself, he goes out by himself; if he comes in married, then his wife shall go out with him. “If his master has given him a wife, and she has borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children are her masterʼs, and he goes out by himself. “And if the servant truly says, ‘I love my master, my wife, and my children, let me not go out free,ʼ then his master shall bring him before Elohim, and shall bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl. And he shall serve him forever.
(Exo 21:1-6)

In the seventh year a Hebrew was to be set free. But if he chooses to be free, (free of his master) he leaves ALL that he acquired while in his masters house behind. However, the slave may CHOOSE to stay in his master’s house and become a bond servant. He now stays in the “house” for life and keeps what he acquired. He still serves his “Master” but he does so out of love now. Before he can become a bond servant there is a procedure that must be followed, “then his master shall bring him before Elohim, and shall bring him to the door, or to the doorpost, and his master shall pierce his ear with an awl. And he shall serve him forever.”

Keywords to look into here are door or doorpost, pierce, ear and awl. EVERYTHING YHWH does is for a reason; there are no coincidences in YHWH’s Kingdom.
Why the door or doorpost?
“I (Yahshua) am the door. Whoever enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and shall go out and find pasture.
(Joh 10:9)
So the slave must come to the Door (Yahshua). Then the slave’s ear is pierced.
Why the ear pierced?
Throughout Scripture we see a pattern established, it is the principle of shema-ing.
H8085
שׁמע
shâma‛
BDB Definition:
1) to hear, listen to, obey (verb)
Hear, hearken, listen to in the Scriptures is shema. Shema is a VERB it means hear and do! We have a huge problem in the world today. Very few listen, even less hear and even far less do. We tend to question everything, why do I have to do this, why do you want me to, why, why, why. There is NO in shema. So to start shema-ing we need to have our ears opened. How do we get our ears opened? Go to the Door and let the awl pierce through your ear. You see the awl is a boring instrument. This is no nice ear piercing at Wally World. Your Master bores out your ear all the way through to the Door. Let that sink in a minute.
But why does the slave have to wait until the seventh year? Can’t a good slave prove they are worthy of becoming a bond servant sooner? YHWH works in cycles, and I am talking about cycles of seven. Six days you will work (slave) then on the seventh day you will cease from your labor. On the seventh day you can become a bond servant, this starts a new cycle and day eight becomes a new beginning our a new day one. There are seven Feasts or Festivals of YHWH a year. Then we cycle through and begin again.
When we choose to become a bond servant, we choose to lose. We lose “freedom” but what is it we become a servant to when we leave our Master? Do we really lose freedom or do we in reality become completely free by choosing Him? The law of the bond servant places the slave in the position of willful submission and puts the burden of responsibility on the Master. When the bond servant is hungry, who feeds him? When we are sick, who heals us? When we are in trouble, who rescues us? Submission as a bond servant takes the burden of responsibility off of us and places it upon our Master!! We must learn to submit to win.
So what am I getting at here? Why must we become bond servants and be nailed to the Door? If the awl goes through me into Him, I am now attached to Him. We are one! I am in Him and He is in me.
Ye are of Elohim, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.
(1Jn 4:4)
He is in me, and my Master who lives in me is greater than he that is in this world.
Whereof I am made a minister, according to the dispensation of Elohim which is given to me for you, to fulfil the word of Elohim;
Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his holy ones:
To whom Elohim would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Moshiach in you, the hope of glory:
Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Moshiach Yahshua:
(Col 1:25-28)
The mystery has been hidden but if it has been hidden who is it hidden from? Not the Set Apart bond servants of YHWH. We know the secret and it is Yahshua (the Door) in us. This makes us perfect and is our only hope.
Okay, so stop a second and go read Ezekiel chapter 37. I’ll wait for you…
To save space and make this blog user friendly, I will not post Ezekiel 37 and trust that you read it through.
The Hand of YHWH was upon the prophet and carries him in the Ruach to a valley filled with bones. Nothing too deep yet, this is just a supernatural trip to a valley that has bones scattered all over. There are lots of bones and they are dry having all of the water baked out by the sun. So we can see bleached white bones, dry and lifeless, scattered and incapable of man putting them back together. YHWH asks, “Can these bones live?” and Ezekiel is no dummy for he says, “Oh YHWH Elohim, you know.” Notice he doesn’t really answer the question. YHWH tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, a little strange but okay. Ezekiel is to tell the bones to hear (shema) the Word of YHWH.
Now let me stop for a second. According to man’s definition what does a prophet do? We have always had the misconception that a prophet tells our future. To some extent Ezekiel does that by telling the bones that they will be reassembled, knit together and brought to life. However, the Scriptural function of a prophet is to call people to return (teshuvah) to YHWH. Go check me out. Yeshayahu (Isaiah), Yeremiah (Jeremiah), Yoel (Joel), Daniel and Jonah; isn’t that what they ALL did? So what do you think Ezekiel said to the bones? Was it, “I see a HUGE amount of money coming your way” or “Step on a crack break your momma’s back”? C’mon now. We all know that Ezekiel preached that the bones needed to return to YHWH and shema His Commandments.
As Ezekiel is preaching, there comes a noise (Kol in Hebrew which means voice or light), then a shaking (Ra’ash in Hebrew which means earthquake or rattling) then the bones came together. Everybody sing along… “Thigh bone connected to the shin bone, shin bone connected…” you get it. I want you to notice a couple of things. 1. The prophecy to return to YHWH brings the bones together and makes them a Body again. 2. Verse 11 clearly states these bones are the House of Israel. What has happened to these bones? They are dried up and there hope is lost. Dried up or they have no more water in them.
That he might sanctify and cleanse it (the Body) with the washing of water by the word,
(Eph 5:26)
The woman said to Him, “Master, You have no vessel, and the well is deep. From where, then, do You have living water? “Are You greater than our father Yaʽaqoḇ, who gave us the well, and drank from it himself, and his sons, and his cattle?” Yahshua answered and said to her, “Everyone drinking of this water shall thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water I give him shall certainly never thirst. And the water that I give him shall become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.”
(Joh 4:11-14)
Go to the Psalms and read all of the references to water. It is very clear that the Water the bones were lacking is mayim chayim (Living Water). Yahshua was that Water/Word made flesh and these bones or in dire need of a drink. Not only that but their expectancy or hope has been cut off or divided from them. WOW!! I hope you can see what this is saying.
The final step in this process is YHWH breathes on these bones and they receive life. Just being reassembled into a Body is not enough. This Body needs LIFE; One Ruach from YHWH giving back the Body Life.
Ezekiel chapter 37 is a picture of the Body of Messiah, the Bride being put back together and brought to Life by teshuvah to YHWH and shema-ing His Commandments while being full of His Ruach.
One more and final point; if we are one Body, one Bride in Yahshua and are being prepared to fight, what kind of fight is it?
Because we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against authorities, against the world-rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual matters of wickedness in the heavenlies.
(Eph 6:12)
This Spiritual Body can only fight a Spiritual battle. When we try and fight a Spiritual battle with our physical things, we lose. We must be united to stand and fight against the wickedness of ha satan or we will never overcome. So that brings us back to the beginning (as you knew it would). How do we as Believers who are separated by physical barriers (time and distance) unite and fight?
YHWH knew we would end up scattered. He has every intention of bringing us back together physically to His Land. In the mean time, He created something that is mind blowing for His People. If you and I are one Body, if we are one in Him, it is through the One Spirit that we are united. So as I sit here in the sticks of Texas, I can become Spiritually united with ANY Believer who joins me in Him. Sounds simple but what do I mean? When we enter into Him together even while separated we are in a Spiritual plane that is real. This world and everything in and on it is just dirt and is temporary. He made it all and everything is connected through Him. But we have an element that makes us different, that is the Spirit which is really real and not just temporary. Everything I can see is not real and everything I cannot see is real. Yes, there was an element of truth to the movie the Matrix.
So how do I get into that Spiritual plane and join forces with the other parts of His Body? Well YHWH created that as well. Every day at the third hour and ninth hour of the day, we have a prayer time (approximately 9 a.m. and 3 p.m.) Yes this is Scriptural, in fact look at Yahshua on the Tree and what happened during these times. Also the talmidim (disciples) observed these prayer times. Secondly, we have a seventh day every week when we stop and enter into a time warp, if you please. It is a Spiritual place that YHWH created for His People. Thirdly we have a time every month when we go out and watch for the New Moon and thank YHWH for another month. Fourthly we have Set Apart Feast Days have been established by YHWH so that we can enter into this Place with Him.
So even if we are separated, whether it be a handle full or thousands of miles, when we go together to meet YHWH we unite in Him. At the moment we are together in Him, we are a functioning Body. What that means is if you have a need when you go to YHWH with your need, I can feel your need and intercede on your behalf. I am not declaring to have achieved this Spiritual state as of yet, but this doesn’t mean what I am saying isn’t true and achievable.
We are fighting a Spiritual battle, until we can learn to unite, just like the army in Ezekiel chapter 37, and fight together on a Spiritual level we cannot win. The Bride of Messiah must KEEP these appointed times designated by YHWH. These matters are Spiritual matters that we cannot completely fathom on a physical plane. When we have been brought by the Ruach to this point, we will no longer struggle so much with the physical separation that plagues us. Until we are brought together physically, it is imperative that the Body learn to exist on this Spiritual level so that we can be strong in the power of His might.
Shalom in YHWH.

2 comments:

  1. Excellent brother. May we all take this to heart and put it into action.

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  2. Very well done. My favorite portion of Scripture is John 14-17 where Messiah is praying to the Father before His passion. In this portion of Scripture He reveals that His heart desires the things you mentioned above. Unity. Unity between man and Elohim and Unity between man and man.

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