Awake! – Part 8 – Power/Authority
Matthew 28:16-20
So the eleven talmidim (disciples) went to the hill in the Galil where Yeshua (Jesus) had told them to go. When they saw Him, they prostrated themselves before Him; but some hesitated. Yeshua came and talked with them. He said, “All authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and make people from all nations into talmidim (disciples), immersing them into the reality of the Father, the Son and the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit), and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember! I will be with you always, yes, even until the end of the age.”
Luke 10:17-20
The seventy came back jubilant. “Lord”, they said, “with Your Power, even the demons submit to us!” Yeshua said to them, ” I saw satan fall like lightning from Heaven. Remember, I have given you Authority; so you can trample down snakes and scorpions, indeed, all the enemy’s forces; and you will remain completely unharmed. Nevertheless, don’t be glad that the spirits submit to you; be glad that your names have been recorded in heaven.”
The most important thing to being awakened is getting to know Yeshua the Messiah, first and foremost! The next priority is to know what it means to have been reborn through Him into the Kingdom that is more real and more important than the one we were born into as wee babes from our mothers wombs.
Think not, for one second, that Yeshua wasn’t familiar with our temptations to be distracted by a very distracting world. Full of not just evil, but the goodness of God too.
Hebrews 4:14-16
Therefore, since we have a Great Cohen Gadol (High Priest) who has passed through to the highest heaven, Yeshua, the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we acknowledge as true. For we do not have a Cohen Gadol unable to empathize with our weaknesses; since IN EVERY RESPECT HE WAS TEMPTED JUST AS WE ARE, the only difference being that He did not sin. Therefore, let us confidently approach the throne from which God gives grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace in our time of need.
Fictionally, one could guess, that it went through His mind…
“Father, would it be so bad to remain Your faithful servant as a carpenter with Yoseph? It’s good work, with many opportunities to do Your work.”
“Father, look how Havah from the house of Samuel worships and serves You. I wonder, dear Father, what it would be like to have a wife and children such as You have made it to be?”
“Father, look, look how much You are needed here! So many blind, so many deaf, so many lost, would more time not be good?”
Of course, it’s hard to speculate such things. Yeshua has a stigma that makes such speculations feel almost blasphemous! But, I digress to the truth of Hebrews 4. I don’t think it’s possible to speculate that He was tempted to evil. But tempted to do things different than His Father in heaven desired, exactly, yes, I think it’s more than possible. Why?
Luke 22:41-43
He (Yeshua) went about a stones throw away from them, kneeled down and prayed, “Father, if You are willing, take this cup away from Me; still, not My will but Yours be done.” There appeared to Him an angel from Heaven giving Him strength, and in great anguish He prayed more intensely, so that His sweat became like drops of blood falling to the ground.
Look at that verse very closely, really read it. Most people skip the most important part, emphasizing only His willingness to yield to God. Which is highly important, mind you, I agree. But let’s really look at the angel part, this angel comes to strengthen Him, God knew the temptation here needed extra attention, His compassion poured down onto our Saviour here. Yet, look! Yeshua prayed more intensely to the point of sweating like drops of blood – after – the angel came. I don’t know about you, but often when I’m at a yielding point, the strength God sends to keep me headed in His direction comes with a fight. Head knowledge alone, of the right thing to do, is not the key. It’s fighting the feelings, emotions and sometimes very physical nature to run the opposite way! So here we can see that Yeshua knows this as we do! Sometimes it’s hard to understand why it was God’s will that Yeshua not sin, and that He moved heaven and earth to keep that from happening, when it would seem that it’s God’s will that we sin. It doesn’t seem fair.
For those of us who understand the very nature of God’s plan through Yeshua from the beginning of time I need not break this down for you. For those of you who are stuck on this part of God and His nature and plan, may I suggest you study from the beginning (Genesis) asking Him, Himself to reveal to you the difference between us and Yeshua. This is the only way you will know for sure. There are hundreds of teachings on it, yes, but true knowing comes from our own “bloody searching” and I’m not being British in the pun. There’s a searching that this world teaches, it’s rather limp and easy to quit. The searching required to really know the free-setting-truth, is a lifetime commitment. As in you take your last breath looking. It does not take that long, but I’m driving this home to show the difference between a curious seeker, and a driven desire for God alone. This is why there are few who find the narrow path. As I said, this world, is distracting and can be very convincing, that it’s ways can seem so trustworthy. To be awake, we must abandon the thought that this world’s ways have any value whatsoever. To say that this is hard to do is an understatement. Yet, the rewards of having persevered to this goal is, at this moment in time, beyond telling. To get to the Kingdom where no desire to sin, no desire for anything but God’s will is the total existence of man kind, this is the Promise that God has kept in Yeshua, with Yeshua, for us. This is the fellowship of Following Yeshua. Yes, we sin less and less, here and now, as we learn from Him, listen to and obey Him, and do the work He did/does until the Day comes when God – The Almighty and The Power of ALL, says “Enough!” to an enemy who defied Him long long ago, and set out to make of us “little defiler’s” along with him. Misery loves company.
There is a very real and very significant authority we begin to exercise once Yeshua is Master and Lord of our lives. If we look around, and into the past, we find that the authority Yeshua spoke of in Luke 10, has obviously not been something many have understood. I’m learning. To be awake, and help others in the same way, we must learn what this means. What could be more important for us to dive into to study at such a time where the Great deception is in effect and it seems that the whole world is held in the grip of that power? How do we begin to understand the following scriptures if we don’t fully lay hold of the authority Yeshua gives us?
John 16:33
“I have said these things to you so that, united with Me, you may have shalom. In the world, you have tsuris (troubles). But be brave! I have conquered the world!”
1 John 4:4-6
You, children, are from God and have overcome the false prophets, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world; therefore, they speak from the world’s viewpoint; and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us; whoever is not from God doesn’t listen to us. This is how we distinguish the Spirit of Truth from the spirit of error.
1 John 5:3-5
For loving God means obeying His commands. Moreover, His commands are not burdensome, because everything which has God as its Father overcomes the world. And this is what victoriously overcomes the world: our Trust. Who does overcome the world if not the person who believes that Yeshua is the Son of God?
(There’s more: Look them up😉. Romans 8:31-37; 1 Corinthians 15:57-58; 1 John 2:13)
At a critical hour one must be able to understand their resources, how they are obtained and the limit or limitlessness of them. We are at the critical hour, our resource is Yeshua, how He is understood and the limitlessness of all He is to us is of great importance!
✡ To the One who can keep us from falling and set us without defect and full of joy in the presence of His manifest Glory of God present with man – to God alone, our Deliverer, through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord – be glory, Majesty, power and Authority before all time, now and forever more. Grace and peace in Yeshua the Messiah! ✡
The Great Exchange
1 Timothy 6:11-12
But you, as a man of God, flee from these things; and pursue righteousness, godliness, faithfulness, love, steadfastness, gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith, take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you testified so well to your faith before many witnesses.
What is the good fight of faith? This question is the foundation of our walk with God. Everyday I wake up to a fight. One that the promise of God to me is that He has provided the victorious walk of Yeshua (Jesus), in exchange for mine. He gave His Son so that I may live. In the general sense, that death may never have the victory, no final breath for me! But in the broadest of terms, everyday a life-giving replacement of thoughts and deeds has been given in exchange for what my flesh shall resume in death at the rise of my consciousness from sleeping to waking, the dawn of a new day in the good fight of faith.
One of the greatest gifts God has given me is the wisdom and discernment of what that good fight “looks like”. It’s practical application to every minute of my walk and testimony of faith. Repentence is an exchange. I give my evil deeds in exchange He gives me deeds to produce life. Repentance is a life long exchange. It always starts in the mind, where evil deeds begin as lies, and root words, if you will, that produce the weeds of the actions. Not all the lies are persay untrue. Example: my thoughts of complaint about this or that may be valid (based on a truthful assessment) ie: “Life is so hard, that person is so difficult, this pain is so bad,” etc. These thoughts are not persay untrue. People can be difficult, life is hard, pain is hard to ignore. What developed from these thoughts is the need to express them in the form of complaint for me. The attitude of complaint turns true things into lies by saying that they are worthy of complaint, God is no longer in control, good can not be had in this or that or them, etc. What we give voice to states what we believe is true. We as a people are professional complainers! Almost everything we complain about has truth to it. How then do we fight the good fight with the tendency to complain (groan, mumble)? We must exchange at the thought level complaint for praise. It’s being transformed by the renewing of the mind that Paul talks about in Romans 12:2. So the thought begins with “that person is so difficult” and the great exchange is: I give that thought to God and ask Him to replace it with praise, in turn I take the outward and inward action of thanking God for that person and His work in them instead. It literally is the power of the Holy Spirit we are given to do such an exchange. If one is tempted to take something from someone, the exchange is to give something to them instead. We can take all sorts of things from people and not realize it. Their time, their resources, their energy, their hope, their encouragement, their courage, their trust, and the list can go on. To complain out loud to someone can take many of these all at once. It’s essentially how we bring one down rather than lift one up. Often the good fight in these cases ends and begins only in the mind. Where complaint gets exchanged for the praise of God in every situation. Often its there where the deeds or actions of evil are reverted or avoided. No one sees this place but God, the hidden fight is within. Sometimes this is why we don’t do it. We like to be seen, even if we need to repent. It’s a mystery for sure, but not mysterious. Hence why we so often do the things we don’t want to do and don’t do the things we want. All sin has its source at self display; the need for us to be seen, acknowledged, praised, felt sorry for, even encouraged in a not so encouraging way. This is why the Scripture repeatedly from beginning to end says to “give thanks to God for everything at all times. For if God is the pursuit of display, our goal for WHO gets seen, then our-selves are exchanged for Him.
So we exchange every untrue, unworthy, unholy, unwise thing for His truth, His holiness, His wisdom, His worthiness. It starts first in the mind, but without taking action on the exchange it becomes fruitless. I stayed stuck at the exchange in my mind for years and wondered why I never seemed to change outwardly. It’s a wonderful thing to go from complaint in the mind to praise to God, no doubt. But the fruit must be produced. When I have a judgemental thought towards someone I know, in my mind, I praise God for them and His work in them that I can’t see at the moment (faith), but the Spirit gives fruit, and this is when I send that person an encouraging text (action) as a result of the exchange in my mind. (Now many will wonder how many times their text messages of encouragement was a result of a judgemental thought!) But, so what? The fruit of my good-fight walk with Almighty God is the point of praise, I never deserved praise in the first place!
The same especially applies to truth, if I’m tempted to lie, I act on truth. If I’m tempted to be unforgiving, I act on grace and mercy. If I’m tempted to be impatient and unkind, I act on kindness and perseverance. When I’m tempted to react with frustration and anger, I act on the steadfast love of God for me. All of these things start with the good fight inside my head, where I exchange my thoughts for His. The experience of victory is found in the action that I take as a result of the battle that gets won in my mind. Every time I have a thought of complaint, it’s my goal (and first and foremost God’s goal for me) to exchange the complaint for praise of Him, then for the proof of its existence I act on the praises of my God. I watch myself transform into a doer of the Word, not just a mere hearer.
Often complaint is towards circumstances, so the action is then to move into them with praise and thanksgiving, steadfast effort into the hope that God is working good in them, faithfulness to His efforts, His results, not mine. I take action on these instead of complain. Again, no one sees this process, but God. Hence the Scripture that says “the God who sees what you do in secret will reward you, in secret. Not hush hush, secret, but inside where peace is formed into formidable action and rest of soul. Where we cease our striving, and can be still and know that He is God – really know, faith becomes reality.
All faith must be exercised in action or it becomes a system of our own perceptions of God instead of who God really is. It’s not about works, it’s about The Worker, the Author and Perfecter of our faith. The One who provided this Great Exchange-Market of our flesh for His heart. Without Yeshua we have no access to this “market place”. The currency of the Kingdom is the Spirit that changes us from within and makes it evident outwardly as a testimony of God’s goodness to the world around us. We are witnesses to God’s transforming power in us as well as those He directs their attention to us as we learn and grow in Him. We are never to display the work of God, that’s not our job, that’s His. We are to fight this good fight and allow the process of our transformation to become a beacon of light in a dark world. He directs the light as He wills, but His direction for our attention is ever upward. For us to become aware of the light He makes us is and can be a sign that we have lost the place of exchange. For we are never light without His goodness replacing our garbage first.
It’s a Great Exchange to walk with a Holy God, whose thoughts and ways are so different than ours. The process of this invades every little part of our living, breathing, waking moments in this life. There is no place where the good fight does not take place in us. No where we can relax and say “I’ve got this.”. We never had it in the first place, we’ll never gain it to take ownership of it ourselves. The only thing that comes close, is that God gave it to us in the first place. We take hold of it, as a piece of armor, but never does it originate from us, ownership is His and His alone, always.
Jude 1:24-25
Now, to the One who can keep you from falling and set you without defect and full of joy in the presence of His glory – to God alone, or Deliverer, through Yeshua the Messiah, our Lord – be glory, majesty, power, and authority before all time, now and forever. Amen.
1 Thessalonians 5:23-24
May the God of shalom (peace) make you completely holy – may your entire spirit, soul and body be kept blameless for the coming of our Lord Yeshua the Messiah. The One calling you is faithful, and He will do it.
Be of good courage, take heart, the transformation of your whole being is assured and completely possible, thanks be to God. The good fight is where we are given eyes to see, a heart to understand, and turn to God. Every single battle is glowing with victory because He who is within you is greater! He can give us, in exchange for our inglorious thoughts and ways, a glorious mind and spirit and body. We are not doomed to failure, but to faithfulness! Enter the Great Exchange, and see the Kingdom of God within you!
♡ Grace and peace in Yeshua the Messiah ♡
Food Facts #1
Did you know…
That avocatoes boost your metabolism for 24-48 hours? Eating one a day is the equivalent of walking briskly for 3 miles! Yep, if you’re looking for a food that can do for you without you doing any heavy lifting, this is your chance! They contain the highest amounts of healthy fats in a vegetable. (Yes, your body was designed by God to need fats). They have what is called omega fats. Omega fats are not stored in the body, but used in each of your systems to produce the “fruit” of good energy and mental clarity. God created your body to store the other kinds of fat found in meat, dairy, and sugar foods for a rainy day or lean times. Skip back to the past, before grocery stores. (Believe it or not more time has ticked off the wheel without grocery stores than with) There were what they call lean times, during winter and non-growing seasons, that created the need for this mechanism in our bodies. God has always known what He was doing 😉 Sadly, we no longer have these times, hence the reason all that fat gets “stored-up” but never turned into the ‘extra meal’ lean times required of us. These extra fats now go to that storage area, but get too full and your body sends them into systems that were never designed by God to handle. Cancer feeds off of and lives in these stored fats – but sugar is its favorite food!
Avocados actually help your body get rid of these stored fats, like a friend who comes and helps you find your way home. They escort the useless fat to the waste systems by boosting your metabolism to burn off all that extra. Like calls to like, and avocado fats know the bad fats’ language, but gently advocates for your health, convincing those fats they really don’t want to live where they cause death in the body.
They are creamy and full of vitamins and minerals too! , (Thanks to that seed inside) It’s good for everything! There is not one thing that these little cups of health don’t do to help you up the health-o-meter! (Unless, of course, you are allergic to them. In such a case, I offer my profound condolences!) Avocados are one of the most amazing creations of God’s table. They make great snacks, and can be added to almost anything as a nice addition to any meal. Why not start putting these tasty little buggers to work in your body now?
A recipe is forth coming for a double bang for your ‘body-bucks’ with avocados.
Stay tuned…
♡ Grace and Shalom in Yeshua the Messiah ♡
Unfolding My Wings One Day at a Time
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