This familiar scripture is written in John 4 where the Yashua meets with the woman at the well. He tells her that the Father is seeking those true worshippers who will worship Him in spirit and truth, because He is Spirit.
Ultimately His Spirit is the Spirit of Truth, and although it is vitally important that we worship Him in truth, it is equally important that we worship Him in Spirit. He requires not only that what we sing and praise is doctrinally correct, but also that when we sing, that which we sing is indeed true about us. It is so easy to put on worship songs and be swept up by the music and atmosphere and to give ourselves over to the music. But He requires foremost that we would think about what we sing and examine our hearts whether it is true what we sing. Discernment always starts with our own heart. He requires not only what we sing to be true but that we ourselves would be true. If we do not do this, we are open to deception; because if there is one area that is prone to be sensual and of the flesh, it is worship. With the “lights, camera and action” and all the professionalism we can muster up, we think we can bring His presence down. We are impressed, surely He must be? But alas, He searches the heart of man, and whilst we shout and the top of our lungs, arms widespread and given over to the moment, what lies within our hearts is what reaches His searching gaze and hearing ears. Simple worship and devotion is not inferior to the hype to which we have grown accustomed. Rather it fosters a quiet spirit that becomes as a glassy sea that is sensitive to the slightest touch of the Spirit. It gives way to adoration. This begs the question, what is adoration then? This is worshipping Him in spirit, from your spirit and by the Spirit. The one is predicated on our senses -- a heart feeling overwhelmed, feeling loved, secure, and a sense that God is near. This anyone can experience with the right atmosphere. However, the other, that which is of the spirit of man, is true adoration. This adoration is built on a foundation of a lifetime with God. There is a history with God, a knowledge of the Holy, and union with Him as one who has battled together with Him through the worst of storms. This adoration is heavy with the weight of the magnitude of who He is. It is knowledge as experience. This adoration has within it the awe of the wisdom of God that transcends human knowledge. It is heavy and weighty, and the worship that comes from this is laden with Spirit and Truth and does not depend on feelings, senses, or goosebumps. It does not need music to stir it. It does not need to be built up with an amplifier or brought to the height and splendor of lights, camera, and action. In true adoration, every part of you is worship. In this there is no need for a song to sing, for they themselves are the song sung unto the Lord.
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In 1 Corinthians 3 there were factions within the church about the different people’s teachings they followed. Some said they preferred Paul, others Apollos, and then some preferred Peter. Paul’s response was that it did not matter, because God used them all and that in the end, everybody’s work will be tested with fire. Sadly we find the same today. We hear, I follow this ministry, or I follow that person, and we start to have this “chosen people” attitude that says, “If you don’t believe as we do, cheers!” The same was done by the Pharisees seeing Yashua sitting at the sinner’s table. The tax collector was definitely a problem, because he took everybody’s money. And what about those who did not believe in the resurrection?! Is it not just like our Father to speak to Peter by giving him a vision of a cloth filled with unclean animals, just to say to him, “Hey Peter… share My gospel with them too”. And what a variety of unclean animals it must have been. Yet, we are all washed under the same blood and loved by the same Person. This same God who calls a crow unclean sends it to share a meal with His Prophet, Elijah. He also tells his other prophet, Hosea, to go marry a woman of whoredom. How could He do this when His law clearly prohibits it? We are so narrow-minded and so boxed in with our opinions and traditions that we think we can put Him in that same box. It’s not going to happen. We are not to follow any man’s opinion or tradition. We are to walk by the Spirit. We are to know what He wants in every situation, and that requires that you give up your box. Best to get in God’s box. 1 Corinthians 3
1And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. 2 I have fed you with milk, and not with meat: for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able. 3 For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men? 4 For while one saith, I am of Paul; and another, I am of Apollos; are ye not carnal? 5 Who then is Paul, and who is Apollos, but ministers by whom ye believed, even as the Lord gave to every man? 6 I have planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. 7 So then neither is he that planteth any thing, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. 8 Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: and every man shall receive his own reward according to his own labour. 9 For we are labourers together with God: ye are God's husbandry, ye are God's building. This is a pearl Father gave me a while back. The issue will always remain the heart. He tells us that the heart is utterly deceitful and desperately wicked and that He is the one who searches it and knows it.
There are those who try to uphold the law or even that which they consider true to the point of it becoming a law, and they do so out of a sincere heart of love for the Lord. Nobody wants to be enticed or be deceived. Our enemy knows this too. And if he cannot get us to go astray because of outright deception, he will use our love for the Lord. He does this by focusing on our fervor and sincerity of wanting to please the Lord. We fall into the trap of “dos and don’ts” not because of any other reason but that we want to please Him from a sincere heart. I call this sincerely deceived. The Word says that love is the fulfillment of the law and that the old has fallen away and has made way for the new, which is to love the Lord God with all our heart, mind, and strength and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The Law, although good, brings with it judgment, and it binds even to the point where scripture tells us that the letter kills… but the Spirit gives life. In our quest for holiness we enter into a relationship with Him where we subconsciously and later blatantly start living by rules…”Thou shalt not…” After all, it was Yashua that said that if you love Him you will keep His commandments, right? But some have forgotten that He has given a new commandment, and they still hold onto the old. Bringing this to a New Testament context, there are those who do not hold onto the old but have embraced the new. They get it. They have been saved by grace through faith and that not of works. However, subconsciously the ingrained mindset of “I have to keep up my part of the deal” still plays out in their life. They have become a rule unto themselves, meaning they start to live by rules in their sanctification process. “I may watch this, but not that. I may be friends with this one, but not that one”, and the list goes on. And when they break that “law”, they fall to pieces because they were unable to uphold the law and are judged by their own laws they have made. They see only their shortcomings. They see only their sin. They see only their failure and how they are an utter disappointment to their heavenly Father. Does that sound like life? Does the Spirit not give life? Strange how we substitute the one for the other and end up with the same fruit. It is because our nature is as such that we need rules and regulations so that we can check off our boxes. We need to know that we did everything possible to please Him and therefore are clear of any fault on our side. And so, without knowing it, we are still bound proclaiming we are free. But the just shall live by faith. And faith is not complicated. It is simple. It requires a childlike disposition that truly trusts. And this trust comes from knowing Him who is love. For those who have been made perfect in love do not fear judgment. They do not play around with sin and excuse it veiled with cheap grace. No, they walk by a different beat. They are guided by the Spirit in every situation, and they trust Him who says that He loves them. There is no need to please Him who is already pleased with you. For He has made us all acceptable in the Beloved. He took us as is -- pots and vessels from the scrapyard of this world… cracked, broken, dirty, and useless… and He loves us. Why do we forget this in our quest to be holy? Why do we forget that the same Lover who chose us in our sin is the same Lover who loves us unconditionally still? Why do we insist on walking the tightrope of law, when we can dance in the green lush meadow of grace by the Spirit? Let us return to Him in childlike faith and just love our Father. All He seeks is a son and daughter who will love Him. And from this place He guides -- not from the letter but by the Spirit. I am your reward; be Mine. This is such an all-inclusive statement. He did not give in part, but the whole. He did not just give His body, but his soul and spirit. Although the most sacred offering unto the Father, it also served as the means by which He bought His Bride.
In Psalm 16, David cries out that the Lord is His inheritance, His portion. He says that the lines of allotment have fallen into goodly places. Dare we think that we could be His? We know the answer to this. “My Beloved is mine, and I am His.” How easily we say these words out of heart’s desire; however, desire does not constitute reality. He came to show us the means by which He gave Himself… the cross. And there is by no other means we can give ourselves to Him as His inheritance. To the degree that we give ourselves -- body, soul and spirit -- is the degree that we are His. The active pursuit to oneness with Him is in the embracing of our cross daily, not in part, but in full. He did not die only on that hill, but in every hill He faced on the way. He died in every valley and had only one determination… to give himself fully. All other things were secondary to this one purpose, and so it should be in us. We are to set our faces daily to go up to Jerusalem. An ultimate cost for the ultimate reward… this is how He sees His Bride. William Bromwell said, “I must give myself away; for the sacrifice was consumed”. To this I pray, “Lord, consume me with Thy holy fire. Let the fire of your jealous love consume that which I still hold onto, whether it be friend, family, or foe. Consume the desires that war against Your holy love. Burn up that which separates me from being yours fully. Expose the liar that I am. Expose the adulterer that I am, and expose my feeble nature that runs from Your crosses. Let me enter into the flames willingly and rise up from the ashes, a sacrifice consumed with and by Your love. Set me as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal upon thine arm: for love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Let a holy fervor and jealousy for Your love consume me that I may be wholly Yours. Amen.”
you probably know where I am going with this…”when you are weak, then you are strong”. It is amazing how different He thinks to this world, and He admonishes us to renew our minds in order that we will not be conformed to this world. It’s not that He does not want us to be strong in faith or know scripture well and cast out demons, but rather He is seeking an utter dependence so that He can be strong in us and through us. Goërge Muller, known for His profound faith, said that the more he matured in the Lord, the more he became as a child. It would appear that our maturity in Him lies not in how “strong” we appear in signs and wonders, our biblical understanding, or the fact that we have power over the enemy. Rather our maturity is measured by our disposition in Him, our dependence. It stands to reason that He weighs with a totally different scale the issues of life and how He sees maturity. And so when He says, “You do not have to be strong when you are with Me”, He is inviting you to come with your broken heart to Him, just as you are. You do not have to dress it up with faith and paste sticky notes of scripture all over your heart; but instead, just come and give it to Him as it is. Maybe your heart is confused or troubled. Either way, He seeks reality. He does not seek you to be strong when it comes to how you truly feel and where you truly are. He promised to be to you whatever you need in a given time. As your Father, come to Him as a child. He desires to hold you as a Father does where you do not have to say a single word to impress Him or to think that you have to do certain steps before you can approach Him. He is saying, “Just come!” As High Priest Yashua was deeply touched by our infirmities and our pain, He had to endure the cross and that which was brought upon Him before the cross. And He is in the Father and the Father in Him. As a result, the Father is deeply touched by what we have to endure, especially when it is for His name’s sake. We want to be strong and say, “That did not touch me, I’m okay. They can say what they want against me or I forgive them.” However, there are times when it does cut deep and bleeds, and all He wants to do as your Father is to heal your bleeding heart. As your Father, He wants to hold you. As your Bridegroom, He wants to pull you close, and as your Best Friend, He wants to hear all about it. Be that child, be that bride, and be that friend. Don’t be the one who always wants to be strong to show how you have matured. Be real and come to Him. Let Him be your Father, your Husband, and your Friend. You do not have to be strong when you are with Him. Hebrews 4 16 Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. In Galatians 1: 15 – 16, Paul says that it pleased the Lord to separate him from his mother’s womb to reveal His Son in him. Later in verse 24, he said that those in Judaea glorified God in him. And lastly in chapter 6, Paul greets the Galatians saying in verse 17, “From henceforth let no man trouble me: for I bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus”. It is clear from these scriptures just how much Paul represented Christ. Everything Paul did was for this reason -- how he walked, saying “Follow me as I follow Christ”, to what he wrote, and lastly how he suffered. Paul was in Christ and Christ in Him, and the evidence was in the fact that he truly lived his life for Christ alone. He lived before the audience of One. The whole of scripture testifies of this One, Yashua -- in every type and shadow, in every symbol, in the names, in the numbers, in the history, and even all of that which is future. He is the Alpha and Omega, and there is no other. It is as if the Father said, “Son, the stage is yours… it’s all about you.” And the Son in return said, “But only to reveal You Father.” For Christ is the express image of God and so we who are hidden in Christ with God (Colossians 3:3) are to live our lives before the audience of One as well. The real question is, “How do you do this?” It is only when we have effectively given all of ourselves -- body, soul and spirit, that we solely live before the audience of One. It is then that we walk in the knowing that we are one, even as Paul knew and could write these very words…”they glorified God in me”. Truly it is when we have nothing left of ourselves to give that others will glorify God in us. The same is true that with this reality will also come the suffering. And as Paul’s body, representative of Christ, was bearing the marks of Yashua, so we as His Body will too. This is ultimately the cost of being one with Him, so that we too may say to the Father, “But only to reveal you, Father”. For the full revelation of God’s judgment and mercy, His love and wrath, and His salvation and damnation is expressed through the cross… and the message is that mercy and truth are met together; righteousness and peace have kissed each other. “Truth shall spring out of the earth, and righteousness shall look down from heaven.” (Psalm 85: 10 – 11). Living your life before the audience of One is to effectively live for Him alone in all you do. Romans 11: 36 36 For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things: to whom be glory forever. Amen Chosen by God, to live for God… a life lived before the audience of One. Many start their spiritual walk from a foundation that has been broken and bruised through life. This creates in us a deep-seeded desire to be loved and accepted. And the love and acceptance we desire the most is the love of our heavenly Father and our heavenly Bridegroom. Then, in earnest we seek to purify ourselves so that we can be made acceptable unto Him. We want to please Him. This desire He then uses to cause us to seek Him with all our heart, mind, and strength. He uses all things together for good for those who are called by Him and who love Him. In fact, He tells us that when we seek Him, we shall find Him. God is love and when this love has been perfected in us, there is no fear of judgment. It is a process to come to this perfection in love. It is a process of sanctification where healing of that very foundation takes place and where He reveals His love to us as our Father and as our Bridegroom. This seeking ultimately leads to a finding. In the seeking, we still question or doubt His love at times. We have trust issues and we have reason to not trust. When things go wrong, we wonder whether we have caused Him to discipline us. Or when we fall and come short in so many ways and so often, we wonder whether we will ever be good enough. We see our true state and think that we are disqualified, sometimes putting up a brave front before others, saying that we know that He loves us; meanwhile, harbouring these thoughts of doubt in our hearts. One day we feel loved, the next day we feel rejected. We think that we are too busy with life and that because we have not spent the right amount of time in prayer and worship, this somehow serves as an "X" next to our name on our "report card". When we have failed to read our Bible, we think that we have neglected Him. When we forget to speak to Him during the day, we think that we are horrible and cannot possibly be pleasing to Him. This is the place or disposition of seeking. We learn then to grow in His love and later come into a place of perfection in His love. This place of perfection or rest in His love is where the Bride no longer even thinks that anything she can do or not do will have an effect on His love for her. She is no longer seeking His love. She is filled with His love, her cup runs over and so His cup is filled with love for her, and it runs over as well. It is never dependent upon what she does. It is dependent upon who she is IN Him. She is IN Him, in His rest, and therefore, she is never apart from Him. Of course, we know that He said that He will never leave us, but there comes a time when the Bride never leaves Him. She does not think because she has not heard His voice that day that He is angry with her. She does not think that because she has not read her Bible that she is neglecting Him. Everything she does and is, is on the basis of being vitally united with Him in ALL things. He is her all in all, because He has her all in all... body, soul, and spirit. She does not seek His love; she is IN His love and in His rest and has found His love. She never doubts His love and trusts Him completely. Her seeking went to finding, and she is found IN Him. She rests in His love... she goes from feeling to knowing. Therefore, do not be discouraged when you find yourself still in this place of seeking. He is using it to restore your foundation so that you will never doubt His love for you. The reason for your seeking is to find Him, and He has every intention to perfect that which concerns you. Very often we have a certain teacher or mentor that means so much to us that we find ourselves going to them first before we go to the Lord. The same can be between a husband and wife. It is a very subtle process that starts within our minds where we have a problem and our first thought is, “I wonder what that person would say?” or, “What advice would that person give me?” When in fact, our God and Father says to us, “I am the first and the last, and I must be the first and the last in your life.” Without us knowing it, these people we look up to, who mean so much to us and whom we respect and love dearly, begin to fill a place in our heart that is only meant for Him. We must guard our hearts against this, because allowing this will cause the person to become an idol to us. The Lord knows exactly when that person has taken His place and will then remove them from our lives or even cause them to disappoint us. For example, Moses did mighty things by bringing the Israelites out of Egypt with great miracles. They looked to Him to supply their needs and even told Him that He must hear and ask God on their behalf. Later on, because he married a Gentile, a Moabite wife, the people were disappointed in him and spoke ill against him. There is great futility in trusting in man. No one must ever take the Lord’s place in our hearts. The opposite is true as well. A mentor, pastor, or leader can have those he or she cares for and dearly love them. They love them as their children, which can lead to the point where they are not willing to allow the Lord to work in their lives the way He desires, which is often through hardship. Like a parent, they want to save their children from hardship. Without knowing it, they do not teach them to first go to the Lord to ask Him what He says about something. They jump in ahead and want to solve their problems. At this point, they allow those they mentor to come into their heart, and at the same time it is very likely that the mentor has also taken up space in the hearts of their children as well. These children become so important to them, and they become so important to the children, that they are not willing to let each other go or even to walk away when the Lord requires this. Much like Yashua asked Peter, “Do you love Me more than these?” Some parents, whether natural parents or spiritual parents or grandparents, do not truly give their children to the Lord and in turn allow the children to see them as Lord in their lives. They each keep the other in their hearts all whilst He said, “You will love ME with your WHOLE heart, mind and strength.” Placing someone in our hearts or allowing someone else to place us in their heart is a very subtle thing, and we must stay alert and on guard against it. Each of us belong only to Him and to Him alone. "I am only your everything when I am all you have."
It is always so easy for us to say that He is our everything. And this is our desire. He knows this. Why? Because He placed that desire in us and has every intention to make it so. Once you commit to this, you can expect Him to strip you of everything in order to be just that. It will not be easy. People will not understand and you will often feel as if you are strange and taking things too far. Eventually, you will come into a disposition where there is no resistance or limit to what He may take or give you in life. This gives a new meaning to "My Beloved is mine and I am His". It is not just a romantic statement, but a possession of your whole being. When He is all we have, then He is our everything. Do all things for the love of Yahuah, through His Son, Yahusha, the Savior, King, and Messiah! I Yahuah search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings. Jeremiah 17:10
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. Psalm 51:17 |
AuthorAll of the posts shared here are to highlight the words of wisdom that my sister, Pietra de Bod, has shared with me during some of the most difficult years of my life. These words, birthed by the Holy Spirit within her, have been authentically formed through her own great trials and are spoken out by the same Spirit for our encouragement and edification. These are rhema words of revelation that helped me to heal and grow. I share them here for the glory of the Almighty Savior Yahusha and also in love for you, my brothers and sisters. Categories
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