Beloved Family… can you even begin to imagine what the Lord’s disciples must have been feeling just after their beloved Lord had been brutally tortured and murdered? Try to imagine how much bewilderment, shock, and bitter hopeless ‘letdown’ gripped their inward parts since the one into whom they’d invested their entire lives and futures had been so violently and brutally taken from them! That’s what those two disciples were struggling with as they pondered and discussed their future prospects while they made their way to Emmaus:
“Now behold, two of them on that very day (of their Messiah’s Resurrection) were traveling to a village named Emmaus, a distance of about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were speaking with one another about all the things that had been happening.
While they were talking and discussing, Yeshua Himself approached and began traveling with them. But their eyes were kept from recognizing Him.” (Luke 24:13-16 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added.)
Dear ones… these were authentic disciples… chosen beloved friends and disciples of God’s Living Word made flesh! They were part of Israel’s faithful Remnant… but yet… at that time, they were not equipped with the spiritual Wisdom, Understanding, or Insight that would have made them aware of the risen Lord’s Presence… the way that disciples like Stephen were soon going to be able to know Him as we see in the book of Acts.
Yes, they’d been chosen and called to serve the Lord at this critical time span in history that was about to take the world into the brand new Realities of the New Covenant. But at the time that the above text highlights, they were still spiritually, mentally and emotionally rooted in the Covenant of Sinai. They had not yet made the transition from that Covenant to the one God would institute and launch in the very near future. So at this time, they lacked what the New Covenant was going to be authorized to equip them with. It was not yet time for that awesome spiritual ‘upgrade’ to take place.
“For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My Law (Torah) within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. They will not teach again, each one his neighbor and each one his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,” declares the Lord, “for I will forgive their wrongdoing, and their sin I will no longer remember.” (Jeremiah 31:33-34 NASB, Emphasis added.)
“Therefore say to the house of Israel, thus says Adonai Elohim: ‘I do not do this for your sake, house of Israel, but for My holy Name, which you profaned among the nations wherever you went. I will sanctify My great Name, which has been profaned among the nations—which you have profaned among them. The nations will know that I am Adonai’”—it is a declaration of Adonai—“‘when I am sanctified in you before their eyes.’”
“‘For I will take you from the nations, gather you out of all the countries and bring you back to your own land. Then I will sprinkle clean water on you and you will be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. Moreover I will give you a new heart. I will put a new spirit within you. I will remove the stony heart from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Ruach within you. Then I will cause you to walk in My laws, so you will keep My rulings and do them. Then you will live in the land that I gave to your fathers. You will be My people and I will be your God.” (Ezekiel 36:22-28 TLV.)
New Heart, New Spirit
So what was the difference going to be between the two Covenants? Well, ponder this: What difference would it make to have God’s Word actually living and operating and fulfilling Father’s will from within you… instead of you striving to read and understand the words and put them into practice by your own efforts! It wasn’t that God was different in each of those covenants! No, He is the same yesterday, today, and forever! But the difference is in who would be fulfilling God’s revelations, commandments, and promises in so far as the people are concerned! Would it be each individual person, reading what was written in the Torah and then doing his best to flawlessly jump through every hoop? Or would it be Almighty God Himself, living and operating from within that person, fulfilling everything to make sure that particular member of His New Covenant earthly Body was fully covered? In the former covenant, Man strove to ‘obey’ and ‘be good’ in the sight of God. But in the New Covenant, God Himself lives and acts within His people, through Holy Spirit’s indwelling, so He can transmit what is in our risen Messiah into our spirits and thus make sure that everything is done properly!
Hebrews chapter 8 clearly states another difference. Moses was the mediator of the Sinai covenant. But God’s Living Word, the risen Lord Messiah Yeshua, is the Mediator of the New Covenant! And Aaron and his sons and their successors were high priests in the Sinai Covenant. But Yeshua, the risen Lord, is our High Priest in the New Covenant! So in the New Covenant, Almighty God Himself fulfills and supplies what is necessary, both for His part of the Covenant, and also for our part. God’s Word is our Covering and our Champion… to make sure our part in it is also fulfilled… to Perfection!
“At that time Yeshua said in response, “I praise You, Father, Lord of Heaven and of Earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and discerning and revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for this way was pleasing to You.
“All things have been handed over to Me by My Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal Him. Come to Me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and ‘you will find rest for your souls.’ For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” (Matthew 11:25-30 TLV, Emphasis added.)
The disciples that were on their way to Emmaus had not yet been able to enter into the New Covenant. So they were no better prepared or qualified to fathom what was happening any more than any of their contemporary Israelite brethren! For them, the concept of being able to share in Yeshua’s Resurrection Life was not yet within the realm of possibility. And so, even though the risen Lord was with them… they were not equipped to enter into His blessed Reality, even after He appeared to them in His resurrected human form! So the New Covenant revelation of Gods Living Word they were going to receive in the near future, would be as stunning and mind blowing as the revelation Isaiah once received centuries before:
“In the year of King Uzziah’s death, I saw Adonai sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphim were standing above Him. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. One called out to another, and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is Adonai-Tzva’ot! The whole earth is full of His Glory.”
Then the posts of the door trembled at the voice of those who called, and the House was filled with smoke. Then I said: “Oy to me! For I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips. For my eyes have seen the King, Adonai-Tzva’ot!” (Isaiah 6:1-5 TLV, Emphasis added.)
And do you remember that the Lord had reminded His disciples of the instructions God gave to Isaiah immediately after He allowed him to see His Glory? This is what He said:
“…Go! Tell this people (who are under the Covenant of Sinai): ‘Hear without understanding, and see without perceiving.’ Make the heart of this people fat, their ears heavy, and their eyes blind. Else they would see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and return, and be healed.”
“Then I said, “Adonai, how long?” He answered, “Until cities are laid waste and without inhabitant, houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate. Adonai will drive people far away. The desertion of the land will be vast. Though a tenth still be in it, it will again be burned. As a terebinth tree or as an oak whose stump remains when cut down, SO THE HOLY SEED WILL BE THE STUMP (through which everything will be fulfilled)! ” (Isaiah 6:9-13 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added.)
So how were Peter and the other disciples able to recognize Him when He was with them in the flesh, when so many of their Israelite contemporaries could not? It was only by a special intervening impartation from God!
“Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”
Yeshua said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, because flesh and blood (your Torah teachers and Israelite traditions) did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in Heaven!” (Matthew 16:16-17 TLV)
All of God’s Truth and Reality was implied in the writings, but the Full Unpacking of it was reserved for the generations of the Last Days. So that Fullness wouldn’t become accessible until the era of the Last Days would arrive. So notice what Paul said about this New Covenant era of revelation:
“When you read this, you can understand my insight into the mystery of Messiah—WHICH WAS NOT MADE KNOWN TO THE SONS OF MEN IN OTHER GENERATIONS, AS IT HAS NOW BEEN REVEALED BY THE RUACH TO HIS HOLY (New Covenant) EMISSARIES AND PROPHETS.” (Ephesians 3:4-5 TLV, Emphasis added.)
The Sinai Covenant in Contrast to The New Covenant
And this explains why so many of God’s chosen Jewish people, even to this day, are not able to recognize Yeshua and accept Him for who and what He really is. They’ve chosen to keep their roots embedded into the Sinai Covenant instead of allowing God to ‘transplant’ them into His Spirit-empowered New Covenant that is mediated through His promised Messiah… His Infinitely Perfect and All-Sufficient Son! And the same is true for the rest of the unbelieving human race. They are all looking elsewhere, in all the wrong places, for the safety, wellbeing, satisfaction and fulfillment that only God’s LIVING WORD can supply.
So, as long as Man remains separated from the Holy Seed who became the New Covenant ‘Stump’ (our Messiah Yeshua) that God promised to send to redeem, restore, and fulfill us through His New Covenant, then in ourselves, we remain absolutely helpless, empty, bankrupt, and unable to see, know, enjoy and understand what God so earnestly wants to impart to the whole world. And this is the position the disciples were in… even immediately after the Lord rose from the dead… because the New Covenant had not yet been launched upon the Earth!
“But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away! For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.
“When He comes, He will convict the world about Sin, Righteousness, and Judgment: concerning Sin, because they do not believe in Me; concerning Righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see Me; and concerning Judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
“I still have much more to tell you, but you cannot handle it just now. But when the Spirit of Truth comes, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL THE TRUTH!
He will not speak on His own; but whatever He hears (from our Heavenly Father), He will tell you. And He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine (the Fullness of the Father) and declare (and impart) it to you. EVERYTHING THAT THE FATHER HAS IS MINE. For this reason I said THE RUACH WILL TAKE FROM WHAT IS MINE AND (in the New Covenant He will be able to) DECLARE (impart) IT TO YOU!” (John 16:7-15 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added.)
Regardless of how smart, advanced, or technologically sophisticated we might become… we’ll never be able to meet our own needs or care for ourselves or find an adequate ‘substitute’ that can replace God’s All-Sufficient Son who is our Shepherd and Sole Source of Wellbeing. Only God can be God to us! Nothing created (whether it be Jewish, or non-Jewish, human or technological) will ever be able to take His place! Humans were made to reveal and reflect their Creator, not to live an independent existence of their own, while remaining separated from Him! So, by our very nature, as long as we insist on remaining solitary and independent… we’ll fail to be God’s image and likeness and will therefore remain dead, rootless, fruitless and unfulfilled.
God’s Living Word made flesh… was sent to serve as our Last Blood Covenant Representative and Champion. Only God Himself can fulfill such a monumental task! So through His Son, He redeemed the debt we owed to His Infinite Standards of Righteousness and Justice that we violated through our imperfection, inadequacy, and Sin. And He set us free from the curse and all the death-dealing consequences we incurred when our first parents separated us from God. And it is through this precious God-sent Seed… Messiah Yeshua… that we can once again be united to our God and share and partake in all of His Fullness… and be set free from the coils of the Serpent! This New Covenant makes us to be one with God. Thus He’s free to live and operate from within us! And beloved, once we’re filled to overflowing with His Perfect Presence… we’re completely covered and provided for and there’s no way our enemies, and the cheap counterfeit ‘god substitutes’ they dangle before our eyes, will be able to do anything to distract, deter, confuse, or harm, damage, or stop us in any way!
“I will put animosity between you and the woman—between your seed and her SEED. He will crush your head, and you will crush his heel.” (Genesis 3:15 TLV, Emphasis added.)
“He who dwells in the shelter of Elyon, will abide in the shadow of Shaddai. I will say of Adonai, “He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust. For He will rescue you from the hunter’s trap and from the deadly pestilence. He will cover you with His feathers, and under His wings you will find refuge. His faithfulness is body armor and shield. You will not fear the terror by night, nor the arrow that flies by day, nor the plague that stalks in darkness, nor the scourge that lays waste at noon. A thousand may fall at your side, and ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you.” (Psalm 91:1-7 TLV)
So in the days immediately following the crucifixion and death of our Lord, none of His disciples were equipped to understand the depths of the Glory and the spiritual Impact that would be theirs… once they were equipped to experience and to draw from the Perfect Presence of their indwelling Lord, after they received ‘Power from on high’.
“But you will receive Power when the Ruach ha-Kodesh (Holy Spirit) has come upon you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and through all Judah, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” (Acts 1:8 TLV)
Becoming Living Temples
As soon as the spirits of these disciples were fused together with God’s Holy Spirit, they became living temples of the Presence of Almighty God and living members of His Word’s earthly Body! And they would never again be alone or in need of anything! After God’s New Covenant with Israel was finally launched… our risen Lord was actually able to live His Life, and reveal Himself and the awesome Fruit of His Perfect Finished Works, in and through His New Covenant disciples! This is what Stephen and all the other first century champions of the Faith had been taught and trained to rely upon by the Spirit-empowered apostles.
“Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples mutter vanity? The kings of earth set themselves up and rulers conspire together against Adonai and against His Anointed One:
“Let’s rip their chains apart, and throw their ropes off us!” He who sits in Heaven laughs! Adonai mocks them. So He will speak to them in His anger, and terrify them in His fury:
“I have set up My King upon Zion, My Holy Mountain!” (Psalm 2:1-6 TLV, Emphasis added.)
There has never been anything that any fallen human being could do to redeem, save, restore and fully complete and satisfy himself. Only God can save and restore us! So, before we disciples can be equipped with the vision, discernment, and spiritual equipping God intends for us to have, we must receive the Gift of Holy Spirit Power from on High that God had been telling us about in His written Word for centuries. Beloved, when God’s Spirit makes us to be one with our risen Messiah… WE HAVE EVERYTHING! We are one with the Father and one with Holy Spirit, and we’re sons and full-fledged heirs of God and citizens of His Eternal Kingdom! So don’t ever sell our God short! And never allow anyone or anything to talk you out of your faith, hope, trust and total reliance upon His Living Word! Don’t fall for their gimmicks and devious tricks when they dangle their homemade cheap counterfeit substitutes before you! Nothing short of Yeshua Himself will do!
“Adonai said to me, ‘They have done well in what they have spoken. I will raise up a Prophet like you for them from among their brothers (who will serve as their Messiah). I will put My words in His mouth, and He will speak to them all that I command Him. Now whoever does not listen to My words that this Prophet speaks in My Name, I Myself will call him to account. But the prophet who presumes to speak a word in My Name, which I have not commanded him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods—that prophet will die!’” (Deuteronomy 18:17-20 TLV Amplification and emphasis added.)
“Then he responded to me by saying, ‘This is the Word of Adonai to Zerubbabel saying: “Not by (created) might, nor by (created) power, but by My Ruach! (Spirit!)” says Adonai-Tzva’ot.” (Zechariah 4:6 TLV. Amplification added.)
In those trying days following the death and resurrection of their Lord, the disciples were totally unable to understand what was happening. At that moment in human history, they were just as ‘earthbound’, flesh-dominated, and as easily impressed and intimidated by created, Man-controlled worldly powers and resources as anyone else! Spiritually speaking, they were no better off than their non-believing Israelite brethren, or the pagan idol-worshipping Romans, or the other Gentile peoples that surrounded them on all sides. They were no better off than most of the world is to this very day, including those who embrace and promote one or the other of the world’s myriad of Man-controlled religions or self-devised technological gimmicks!
The same can be said for many modern day ‘Jewish’ and ‘Christian’ spiritual and temporal leaders as well as the devotees that follow them around! It doesn’t matter if they happen to be highly accomplished and brilliant widely acclaimed scholars, polyglots, scientists, technological geniuses, or political and financial or educational movers and shakers in modern day society. As long as they still focus on themselves, and on what they think they’re able to do to help God out, or to replace Him in their quest to ‘make things better’, then none of these elite, upper crust titans from every aspect and era of worldly society is any better or of more value in God’s estimation, than those who are the worst and the least among us! Beloved, there is nothing that any human, or group of humans, can devise or invent or conjure up or learn or do… that will ever be able to substitute for what God has already done for us… and what He, by His Holy Spirit is prepared to transmit into us and for us from the Treasury of Yeshua’s Perfect Eternal Finished Works!
“Thus says Adonai: “Cursed is the one who trusts in man, and depends on flesh as his arm, and whose heart turns from Adonai. For he will be like a bush in the desert. He cannot see goodness when it comes, but will dwell in parched places in the wilderness—a salt land where no one lives.
“Blessed is the one who trusts in Adonai, whose confidence is in Adonai. For he will be like a tree planted by the waters, spreading out its roots by a stream. It has no fear when heat comes, but its leaves will be green. It does not worry in a year of drought, nor depart from yielding fruit.
“The (fallen human) heart is deceitful above all things, and incurable—who can know it? I Adonai search the heart, I try the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds” (Jeremiah 17:5-10 TLV. Amplification and emphasis added.)
So… with the understanding that God’s written Word gives us concerning ‘the human condition’, regardless of which era or age we may wish to consider, we can see that, as long as we remain radically independent from our Creator, Redeemer and Restorer, and continue to think, live, act, react, and interact accordingly, we remain separate from the Glorious All-Sufficiency of our one and only God! This holds true for any and all of the ‘elite’, ‘privileged’, upper crust, well-heeled owners, movers, and shakers, leaders and gurus of the current generation of this fallen, broken world. In light of this, we can now consider the bewildering array of modern day ‘miracles’ that contemporary science and technology and genome manipulation and transhuman inventions have brought into being. I now offer for your consideration some current examples of the ‘bait’ that the leaders and gurus of contemporary modern society are proposing that humans embrace as adequate substitutes for God, and for the All-Sufficiency of what He has already created and given to us:
https://www.brighteon.com/540633be-f9fe-467c-9cc3-e754fddb0dda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zKC00qvGE
The Enemy’s Slippery Slope To Destruction is now being Exposed
Beloved, modern advances in science and technology make it possible for those who are orchestrating all these things behind the scenes to dangle many apparently good and attractive, but totally inane and lethal, things before the eyes of the unsuspecting public. They do it in ways that make it extremely difficult for naïve, ill-prepared modern day people to suspect, much less resist the bait that is being offered everywhere. They offer amazing cures for age old human diseases and maladies and disorders if we’ll only be willing to allow genetic manipulation techniques to be used on us. They lead people to believe that, thanks to technology and human science, they can escape death and live forever, in total peace, joy, and safety. They persuade people to agree to having their DNA coding tampered with and altered, so they can achieve enormously enhanced health, strength, abilities, and perhaps, even immortality! They introduce us to unprecedented pleasurable sensations and feelings that can be induced by merging our human makeup and faculties with hyper-advanced machines and alien technological innovations that will enable us to experience sensations of wellbeing and levels of knowledge and psychic abilities that were never before possible.
As more and more people fall for their ‘bait and switch’ scams… they gradually forget about God… and His Holy Spirit… and what He has already done for us through His Living Word. People forget that God’s Holy Spirit is here to teach and train us to finally learn to think, act, react, and interact with our Messiah, and draw what we need from God, as His Word’s Spirit-filled and empowered image and likeness! So rather than learning to cling to God, and place our hope and expectations upon the future state of Resurrection of which the Gift of the Holy Spirit is a guarantee that we will receive, people are persuaded to doubt, mistrust and ignore God… and thus they remain cut off from their one and only Life Source and the Ultimate God-given remedy for all that ails the human race.
“The woman said to the serpent, “Of the fruit of the trees, we may eat. But of the fruit of the tree, which is in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat of it and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
The serpent said to the woman, “You most assuredly won’t die! For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Now the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a thing of lust for the eyes, and that the tree was desirable for imparting wisdom. So she took of its fruit and she ate. She also gave to her husband who was with her and he ate.” (Genesis 3:2-6 TLV)
God reveals our true state through His written Word! He tells us that there’s nothing we can do as a race to save or cure or redeem ourselves. Those things can only be accomplished by His beloved Living Word made flesh, Yeshua. And the Truth is, that He has already done it! So instead of trying to by-pass Him and find ways to try to save ourselves, we must repent of that insanity and become one with Yeshua… on God’s terms! Then we can receive what only He has the Authority and Creative Power and Wisdom necessary to be able to impart it to us!
Unbelief and rebellion separate us from our one and only Life Source! But, as long as we remain united to Yeshua, Holy Spirit will enable us to draw everything we need from Him. Thus we can share in God’s Eternal Infinitely Perfect Life and Fullness. So as long as people remain in their original ‘walking dead’ state, nothing they try to find or concoct for themselves, to try to make up for God’s absence, will ever be able to save, justify, redeem, or sustain them! So the only hope of salvation and restoration we will ever have, is, to allow the Last Adam that God sent to us, to be united to us by the Resurrection Power of His Holy Spirit! This is what God’s awesome New Covenant with Israel makes possible! And it will be everything that God knows will fulfill and consummate us to Perfection!
“Abide in Me, and I will abide in you. The branch cannot itself produce fruit, unless it abides on the vine. Likewise, you cannot produce fruit unless you abide in Me.
“I am the Vine; you are the branches. The one who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for apart from Me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away like a branch and is dried up. Such branches are picked up and thrown into the fire and burned.
“If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it shall be done for you. In this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be My disciples.” (John 15:4-8 TLV, Emphasis added.)
So… these disciples that were walking to the village of Emmaus, although they were part of God’s chosen Israelite people… and although the Lord Himself had chosen and called them to follow Him… and although He was actually right there next to them, they could not yet recognize and actually bond with their resurrected Lord! They didn’t have the spiritual equipment yet to enable them to know and interact with Him, and be privy to and endowed with the Fullness of Almighty God the way Stephen was equipped and trained to do later on! And because they were not yet fully equipped, trained or prepared to know Him, they were not yet ready to fulfill their God-given New Covenant tasks.
They were also not yet equipped to overcome and triumph completely over the demonic powers of Darkness. They were unable to face and overcome the tyranny and pressures imposed by the brutal Roman Empire and the other Gentile peoples that worshipped the prince of Darkness in and through his many forms and names that he assumes from within the pantheon of this world’s false gods and religions.
Our God Is Greater Than Every Dark Power And All Of Their Lies
The Serpent has countless numbers of devotees and unimaginable amounts of financial and worldly resources at his disposal. If we forget about our God and the New Covenant endowments He has given us that enable Him to actually be in us and to work through us, we’ll swallow the ‘baited’ hooks that these power mad people keep dangling before our eyes. Beautifully packaged and adorned Man-made substitutes will lead more and more people to believe that not even God could top or do better for us than these wonderful awesome glittery modern day wonders and ‘advantages’ that the world can now offer to us… in order to ‘take God’s place’. Beloved, the outward appearances often appear to be irresistible to naïve human eyes. But they are always concealing an array of deadly barbed hooks that the enemy intends to sink deeply and irremediably into our innards in order to destroy our God-given eternal birthright, destiny, and future.
“Know for certain that no immoral, indecent, or greedy person—who is really an idol worshipper at heart—has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Messiah and God. Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s judgment comes on the children of disobedience. Therefore do not be partners with them.” (Ephesians 5:5-7 TLV)
Notice how dismally and tragically different the condition of Adam and Eve became after the Serpent enticed them to ignore God’s Word and separate themselves from their one and only Source of Life. Instead of being able to live and operate as the beloved image and likeness of God, serving as His vice-regents and commanding emissaries of God on this earth, they became like abandoned orphans who thought they had to do everything for and by themselves. God’s Perfect Presence and Righteousness was no longer able to serve as their Covering and Eternal Life. Now the Sin-corrupted world in which they found themselves became hostile, ever-threatening, and totally unable to be a source of joy, fullness and satisfaction for them.
This is why the human race is condemned to live and survive by the collective ‘sweat’ of our brows. Contrary to common popular opinion and ‘science’, Man is not evolving to higher and higher levels of human development. We have been blasted by Sin, and Death is always at work within our mortal bodies. As a race, we’re degenerating, weakening, and approaching our ultimate demise! This is why we can no longer do without being constantly propped up by myriads of medications, and technological aids that serve as ‘crutches’ and ‘canes’ by which we can continue to keep going. And as long as we stubbornly remain apart from our Creator, we’ll be forced to try to fend, forage, and endlessly look for created ‘God-substitutes’ that temporarily make us feel safer, more secure, and, for short spans of time, satisfied. But no matter how much we strive to devise and amass wellbeing for ourselves, nothing lasts. Nothing is ever good enough to actually meet our needs or allay our fears. Whatever we devise will either change and disappoint us, or it will turn against and betray us in due time, or it will decay, fall apart, and die, leaving us bereft of all hope. So with that in mind, let’s consider this awesome revelation that God gives to us through Paul’s writings:
“God chose the lowly and despised things of the world, the things that are as nothing, so He might bring to nothing the things that are—so that no human might boast before God. But because of Him you are in Messiah Yeshua, who became to us WISDOM from God and RIGHTEOUSNESS and HOLINESS and REDEMPTION (Resurrection Life)—so that, just as it is written, “Let him who boasts, boast in Adonai!” (1 Corinthians 1:28-31 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added.)
Yes, it’s true: our indwelling Lord, the Living Word of God, becomes one with us… so we can become one with God! And then what is in Him, is credited to us, even though in ourselves, we are always weak, helpless, dependent, and hopelessly bankrupt!
But when the Spirit of truth comes, HE WILL GUIDE YOU INTO ALL THE TRUTH! He will not speak on His own; but whatever He hears (from our Heavenly Father), He will tell you. And He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine (the Fullness of the Father) and declare it to you. EVERYTHING THAT THE FATHER HAS IS MINE. For this reason I said THE RUACH WILL TAKE FROM WHAT IS MINE AND DECLARE IT TO YOU!” (John 16:13-15 TLV, Amplification and emphasis added.)
Can you see why the apostles and the new disciples that the Lord brought under their leadership, guidance and instruction, didn’t need to have multiple PhD degrees, or enormous amounts of wealth, or technology or military power or to have their DNA artificially altered, or become privy to a bunch of occult or psychic ‘tricks’, to force whatever they wanted to happen just as they wished? They had to face the demon-possessed world systems and the deeply entrenched hardness of heart of the unbelieving Israelite religious establishment, and the cold-blooded brutal legions of the idolatrous Roman Empire! And they overcame and outlasted them all! They had nothing by way of human resources. But… what they had abiding within their God-filled spirits was so eminently superior and far above any of those created earthly things, that it’s laughable! What they had was the Perfect Presence and fierce Blood Covenant Loyalty of Almighty God Himself, working on their behalf! And that was all that was necessary.
Yes, God actually gave Himself to them… to be whatever they might need… regardless of what earthly circumstances they would have to face! God’s Living Word and Holy Spirit became one with them, and they became one with God as a result! So God is our ‘Covering’ and ‘Fortress’ and ‘Treasure’ and Eternal Triumph! So no matter how many gurus of our day keep spouting from their platforms, or how many laboratory geeks work on trying to manipulate humans into ‘becoming like God’… the Truth remains: Nothing they will ever dream up will come close to equaling or surpassing the Creator of all things!
“LET HIM WHO BOASTS, BOAST IN ADONAI!” (1 Corinthians 1:31 TLV, Emphasis added.)
“Great are Your mercies, Adonai. Restore my life with Your judgments. Many are my persecutors and my foes. Yet I do not turn from Your testimonies. I see the treacherous and loathe them, because they do not keep Your Word.” (Psalm 119:156-158 TLV, Emphasis added.)