Growing In God with Gary Hargrave: Recent Episodes

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description:

Is there something for which God has forgiven you, others have forgiven you, and yet you cannot forgive yourself? You cannot assume that it would have no impact on your expression of love to others. We love because God first loved us, and the power of God’s love is forgiveness. So we must not limit it from doing its work in us first. Let us turn loose that power by fully accepting God’s love and forgiveness for ourselves.

Show Notes:

There is no answer for this world apart from God's love. There is a power in His love that if turned loose would bring the solutions that we need. All the wars that are happening are a product of hate. The missiles being launched against Israel are from those who hate Israel and hate the Jews. And yet this is in a land that is about the love of God in the children of Abraham. Therefore, instead of hatred they should be expressing brotherly love because no one can love God and hate his brother.

We love because God first loved us. This means that the love He gives us at some point must become a love that is expressed from us. We know that the power of God’s love toward us is unlimited. Why then is the expression of that love from us toward others so often limited and lacking power? To answer that question, we need to look within ourselves. We know we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Therefore, if we do not love ourselves, we restrict the flow of love to our neighbor.

The power of God's love is forgiveness. We may believe and accept that nothing can separate us from God’s love. But if we are unable to forgive ourselves, we can effectively block the power of that love from working in our lives and consequently in the lives of others. God has made an everlasting covenant with us according to His faithful mercies to David. It is a covenant of forgiveness. We in turn must let the power of His forgiveness work in us and through us.

Key Verses:

• Romans 8:37–39. “I am convinced that neither death, nor life … will be able to separate us from the love of God.”

• Romans 5:8. “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

• Romans 8:28–35. “Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? … Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

• 1 John 4:16–21. “We love, because He first loved us.”

• Matthew 22:35–40. “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

• Galatians 5:14. “The whole Law is … ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’”

• 1 John 4:7–11. “If God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”

• Psalm 130:3–4. “There is forgiveness with You.”

• Isaiah 55:3. “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies [hesed] shown to David.”

• Psalm 136. “His lovingkindness [hesed] is everlasting.”

• Acts 13:34–35. “I WILL GIVE YOU THE HOLY and SURE blessings OF DAVID.”

Quotes:

• “It's one thing to know that God has forgiven me. It's another thing for me to be free and delivered by His forgiveness in that I'm able to forgive myself.”

• “Once we have this love of God in us, it should manifest as a love of our brother, of our neighbor. And yet, why can't that happen? It can't happen if I can't love myself, if I can't forgive myself, because you love your neighbor as yourself. And that is where this whole thing gets stuck.”

• “When we're able to love our neighbor as ourself, the whole world changes. Everything changes. The hate stops. The lies stop. The war stops. The put-down stops. The shame stops. Everything that we do in a negativity of relating to the person and the people outside of us ends with that love.”

Takeaways:

1. The power of God's love always ministers forgiveness. In other words, forgiveness is the outworking of God's love. Wherever you find His love, you find forgiveness. What can stop this power? Only we can stop it when we do not forgive ourselves.

2. We love because He first loved us. And if we love ourselves, we should love our neighbor. God’s love to us and in us must be expressed from us because we cannot love God and hate our brother. We are the only ones who can limit that expression.

3. God promised an everlasting covenant according to the faithful, steadfast, and eternal mercies (hesed) of David. This is a covenant of forgiveness as shown to David and given to us in Christ. This power of God’s love needs to work through us to bring a freedom from the hate, division, and all that is not forgiving.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, is urging Americans to visit Israel at this time. Ambassador Huckabee is also a Christian and a true example of how to bless Israel and the Jewish people. As fellow Christians we should follow his example, go to Israel if we can, and be the expression of Christ’s love to the Israeli people.

Show Notes: During our solidarity tour in Israel, we had the pleasure of meeting with Ambassador Mike Huckabee. In this meeting we had a deep connection of heart and spirit together as the ambassador conveyed a message to the American people. That message is, “Come to Israel.” It is significant that Huckabee is not Jewish like many United States ambassadors to Israel have been. He is an evangelical Christian and a true man of faith. As Christians we should take this to heart and understand our role in helping Israel.

At Hargrave Ministries we try to deal with the issue that the Church has long been a source of negative relations with the Jewish people. Christians have a history of persecuting Jews as well as trying to convert them to Christianity in a way that erases their Jewish heritage. Therefore, you find many who do not trust the motivation of Christians when they come to Israel. That is why we need to pray for Mike Huckabee and follow his lead. As a Christian with a heart of love and faith for Israel and the Jewish people, he is not only representing the United States but also representing all Christians as an ambassador to Israel.

If you are a Christian, one of the greatest things you can do right now is visit Israel. Israel needs to see the expression of love and faith coming from Christians. The Jewish people, whether they are in Israel or not, need to see that Christ is an expression of the love of the Father for them. Everywhere we have gone in Israel on this tour, the response from people has been, “Thank you for being here. You have no idea what your support means for us.” So go to Israel and be a blessing. But whether you go or not, keep praying for Israel and keep giving to help the Israeli people.

Key Verses:

• 1 John 4:16. “God is love.”

• John 3:16. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

• Isaiah 55:3. “I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David.”

Quotes:

• “I think it's a real problem when Christians try to missionize the Jewish people because you're doing more than just saying, “Be a Christian.” You're trying to change the culture. You're trying to change really who the Jewish people are.”

• “We send donations and support every month to eight different organizations here in Israel. But I'll tell you, when we walk in the door and we show up here, that really impacts them, and they appreciate it beyond what you can imagine.”

• “You can pray for the people of Israel. You can pray for the nation of Israel, pray for the soldiers, pray for those that are in need in Israel. So many things that you can pray for if you're not able to come. But if you are able, know that you have an invitation with an open heart from our current representative here and his staff—Mike Huckabee the new ambassador.”

Takeaways:

1. Mike Huckabee, the current United States ambassador to Israel, is a born-again evangelical Christian. In fact, he is a former Baptist minister. So not only is he representing the United States as a nation, but he is also representing all of us who are believing Christians.

2. Mike Huckabee’s love and faith for Israel should be the expression from all Christians. And one of the things he is doing as ambassador is encouraging Christians to come to Israel at this time.

3. Because of the negative ways Christians have related to them, many in the Jewish community mistrust the motives of Christians who come to Israel. Therefore, there is a deep need for an expression to Israel and to the Jewish people of Christ's love, which is the manifestation of the Father's love for them. And being there in Israel is one of the greatest ways to do that.

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Web Description: In a message to faithful believers in Monterrey, Mexico, Gary shares

with them the answer for Mexico. The answer is the leaven of the Kingdom of Heaven

that was implanted within them. This leaven will grow until it influences all of Mexico.

And it will not stop until it fills the whole earth.

Show Notes: At the Feast of Unleavened Bread, all leaven is removed from the house

and unleavened bread is eaten for seven days. In 1 Corinthians Paul compares this

process to what happens within us. During this feast we are to clean out the old leaven

from ourselves. God wants us to remove all the influences of this world and this age

until we are a new lump of dough that is unleavened.

After the Feast of Unleavened Bread, leaven is again added to the bread. As Yeshua

(Jesus) said, the Kingdom of Heaven is like leaven added to a lump of dough that grows

until the entire lump is leavened. During the days of unleavened bread, we remove the

leaven of this world that is not part of the Kingdom of God until we become a new lump

of dough. But that is not where we stop. Then the Kingdom of Heaven itself is imparted

into our hearts and minds. Like leaven, it grows until we are completely filled with His

Kingdom.

You could look at your circumstances and say, “I don’t see it working.” You cannot

necessarily see leaven working either, but slowly and surely it is growing and expanding

in the dough. We have removed the old leaven of influences of this world, and now the

new leaven of the Kingdom will continue to grow in us and influence everything around

us. By this impartation and transformation within us, we become the bread that God can

use to feed the world.

Key Verses:

1 Corinthians 5:7–8.

“Clean out the old leaven.”

Romans 12:2.

“Do not be conformed to this world.”

Matthew 13:33.

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven.”

Luke 13:20–21.

“To what shall I compare the kingdom of God? It is like leaven.”

Colossians 1:13.

“He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred

us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

Philippians 3:20–21.

“Our citizenship is in heaven.”

Quotes: “We are implanted into the Kingdom, and now the Kingdom is being implanted

into us.”

“The days of unleavened bread are finished, and we must become this new loaf

of bread that is to feed the world.”

“The answer for Mexico is this leaven of His Kingdom. And it is now dwelling in

your hearts.”

Takeaways:

1. The Feast of Unleavened Bread has tremendous significance for believers.

Paul wrote about this feast and related it to what happens to us rather than to

bread. We become unleavened by cleaning out the old influences of the world

from our lives.

1. At the end of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, leavened bread is eaten again.

And so we do not remain unleavened. Christ imparts to us the leaven of His

Kingdom. We have removed the old influences of the world, and we have

growing within us the influence of the Kingdom of God.

1. This influence of the Kingdom that expands in our hearts does not stop with

us. It will leaven our community, our nation, and ultimately the entire earth.

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Web Description: As Christians, are we conformed to this age? Do people look at us and see no difference between us and the world? The Lord does not want us to be conformed to this world but transformed by the renewing of our minds. By the authority of Christ through the Holy Spirit, we destroy the speculations that are conforming us to this world. And we take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

Show Notes: As Paul explained in 2 Corinthians, spiritual warfare involves destroying speculations and bringing every thought captive in obedience to Christ. Much of what is taking place in the world today is driven by speculation. So many things that we are seeing and hearing are speculations made up by people attempting to control our thinking. These things are coming directly against the truth and the knowledge of God. But we as Christians need to know the truth and have the knowledge of God. So we must take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ. We cannot allow our thoughts to be controlled.

We are constantly bombarded with the thoughts, the ways, the lusts, and the concerns of this world. All of it is trying to take our thoughts and make us conform to the world. But the Scriptures tell us that we have the ability in God to be conformed to His image by the Holy Spirit. We have the promise that if we refuse to be conformed to this world, we will be transformed by the renewing of our minds. According to the Word of God, if we take these thoughts captive under the authority of Christ, we will be transformed.

Let us stop the world from controlling our thoughts. This may seem difficult because the world is screaming so loudly, and all our senses are attuned to this age. However, the Holy Spirit was given to teach us and to guide us. And we need to spend time with Him, learn how to communicate with Him, turn off all the input from the world that is conforming us to this age, and by the Holy Spirit find the way to be conformed to the Word of God.

Key Verses:

• 2 Corinthians 10:3–5. “We are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

• John 14:6. “I am … the truth.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

• Isaiah 55:8. “My thoughts are not your thoughts.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Prove what the will of God is.”

• Ephesians 4:22–24. “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self.”

Quotes:

• “We may be facing the flesh in this age that surrounds us, but we can't fight back in the flesh. We have to have the spiritual ability.”

• “We must come to a recognition that we are growing up into Christ, growing up into the mind of Christ, until our thoughts are His thoughts.”

• “The greatest tribulation that we will face is the war within us to take every thought captive and to be transformed by the renewing of our mind and come into the image of the Lord.”

Takeaways:

1. Satan is always moving to remove or cover over the truth. Much of what we absorb in this age through all forms of media is not the truth, but speculation designed to conform our thoughts to the world. By the Spirit we must destroy speculations and take every thought captive in obedience to Christ.

2. We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. We do not want to be Christians who look, act, and think like the world. We want to be transformed into the mind of Christ, into the thoughts of God, where God no longer has to say, “Your thoughts are not My thoughts.”

3. According to the Word, you have the ability in Christ to be renewed in the spirit of your mind and to “put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth."

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Web Description: God commanded us to comfort His people. And that is what we intend to do, not just by our prayers but by our actions. That is what this Israel solidarity trip is all about. We are going to Israel to be the hands, feet, and voices of comfort to the Israeli people. We are going there to help them spiritually and physically during this time when so much is coming against them.

Show Notes: At Hargrave Ministries we are on our latest solidarity trip to Israel. The purpose of our trip, as the name states, is to show solidarity with the people of Israel. We are following God’s command in Isaiah 40:1 to comfort God’s people. We are there to be a source of encouragement and support, to let them know that Christians are standing with them. In other words, we are not coming to Israel as sightseers for our own benefit. We are coming to be the hands and feet that are helping Israel and the Jewish people.

We plan to visit several sites in Israel to give them our support. This includes helping pack boxes at Leket Israel, the leading food rescue organization in Israel. We also want to visit United Hatzalah, the volunteer emergency medical service that is saving lives in this current conflict. Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund is also on our schedule. This volunteer organization ministers to children who have suffered emotional and physical trauma from terrorism. We have scheduled a trip to Hebron which, like Shiloh, is in the Jewish homeland of Judea and not the “West Bank” as it is currently mislabeled. And we plan to visit Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center, which is a pillar of education for ending anti-Semitism.

Please help Hargrave Ministries help Israel. We need your support through your prayers and through your giving. Not only do we need to cover the travel, food, and living costs of the trip, but we will also be making donations to support Israel financially at this time. If you have a burden to bless Israel and the Jewish people, you can be a part of this solidarity trip by donating to Hargrave Ministries. Most of all, we need your spiritual support that will allow us to be God’s instruments in this day.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 40:1. “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.”

• Genesis 12:1–3. “I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.”

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is … against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

• 2 Corinthians 10:4. “The weapons of our warfare are … divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

• Joshua 15:13–14. “Now he gave to Caleb … Kiriath-arba, Arba being the father of Anak (that is, Hebron).”

• Deuteronomy 9:1–2. “You are crossing over the Jordan today to go in to dispossess … the sons of the Anakim.”

Quotes:

• “Christianity must be free from anti-Semitism and the roots of it. And we come now as a voice of comfort, as we believe God has commanded us to do in these words from Isaiah.”

• “Part of this solidarity trip is to be a reminder that great prophecies and promises in the Hebrew Scriptures exist and are yet to see a fulfillment over the children of Israel in this day. And we go as Christians believing to be a force of faith to say, ‘We hold to the Word that God has spoken, and we know that not one Word God has spoken will fall to the ground.’”

• “We must realize that part of what we're doing as we go is that we're believing to have the authority and the enabling by the grace of God in the Spirit to bring down these spiritual forces of wickedness that are at the root cause of what we see transpiring.”

Takeaways:

1. An Israel solidarity trip is a tour of Israel for the purpose of being a blessing to the country of Israel. We are going there to be a source of comfort, backing, and encouragement to the people of Israel. We want to help the economy and help the local organizations that are helping the Israelis with the difficulties of war and terrorism.

2. The history of the Jewish people has been one of living under anti-Semitism, persecutions, and just pure hate. And much of that history has been because of Christians. Now as we see Israelis surrounded by many nations committed to their destruction, we want to demonstrate to them that Christians are supporting them.

3. We need to understand that the attacks on Israel and the Jewish people today are from spiritual forces that have assaulted them since the beginning. Our job as Christians is to use the spiritual weapons God has given us to see the destruction of these spiritual forces that are the root cause if what is taking place in the natural realm.

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Web Description: How do we bring the healing that we need and that the world today needs so desperately? The example of healing at Bethesda is a lesson for all of us to apply. When Christ asks us, “Do you wish to be healed?” Our answer needs to be an emphatic, “Yes!” And not, “We are waiting for someone to carry us.” Christ is the source of our healing. He is always willing. And we pick up our own bed and walk in what He has provided.

Show Notes: During the first church service of Bethesda Ministries and the ordination of Silas as pastor, a message came about the ministry of healing. At the Pool of Bethesda in Jerusalem was a man who had been sick for thirty-eight years. Yeshua (Jesus) asked this man a question: “Do you want to be healed?” The man answered by giving the reasons why he had not been healed so far. Yeshua did not listen to the man’s complaints. He simply said, “Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” This story shows us something about our own responses to the Lord.

The Lord had already decided to heal the man at Bethesda. Christ was standing there as this man’s healing. But he had to be brought to the place where Christ was positioned as the manifestation of God's healing for him. The same is true for us. The Lord is not here to listen to our troubles, our excuses, and all our reasons for why things have not worked. He is here to bring us into the place where the answer already exists for the healing and ministry that we need.

There must be a drive in you to fulfill the will of God in your life. Someone else will not do it. It is never someone else's responsibility. It is always your responsibility to get up and walk with God. Christ is always there for us. He already said to the Father, “I am willing,” and He went to the cross for us. Now the fulfillment of that cross is always available to us. We just need to go to Him and say, “I already know You are willing because You have already done it. And I am coming to You to receive everything that I need.”

Key Verses:

• John 5:2–8. “Do you wish to get well? … Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.”

• Matthew 8:1–3. “And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”

• Matthew 26:39. “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

Quotes:

• “There’s going to be a way that you find, in the anointing of the Lord, to have people really take responsibility for the will of God in their own lives, for the will of God in their own community, for the will of God in their own churches.”

• “I don't want a lot of preaching. I want a lot of learning to do it. Christ was pretty simple here: ‘Pick up your bed and walk.’ We can do it if we do it.”

• “Do you know what’s available on that cross? Everything. That’s the point at which nothing is impossible. Any one of our needs—any one of the possibilities that exist for us—is right there.”

Takeaways:

1. Yeshua asked the ill man at Bethesda, “Do you wish to be well?” However, the man answered by saying, “No one will take me to the water to be healed.” The correct answer would have been, “Yes! You are the source of my healing. And I want it!” That is how we need to answer the Lord.

2. At Bethesda the Lord did not listen to the man’s reasons for why he was not healed. He simply told the man to pick up his pallet and walk. God does not listen to our excuses. It is always our responsibility and never someone else’s to walk in what God has given us.

3. We have to see that Christ is the source of all that we need to accomplish His will in the earth. And He is always willing. We lay aside our excuses and our waiting for someone else to do it and take what He is giving us now.

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Web Description: On the death of Pope Francis, we must do more than reflect on his legacy. We must be in intercession for the selection of the new Pope because this will impact how the entire Body of Christ moves forward. Let us pray by the Spirit to create the Pope who will not only continue what Pope Francis started, but will break new ground in our oneness, our functioning by the Spirit, and our connection with the Jewish people.

Show Notes: As the Catholic Church remembers Pope Francis, we also remember our connection with him and with Catholics going back to World Youth Day in 2013. Pope Francis was a groundbreaking Pope in many ways. As we saw at World Youth Day, he had an ability to relate to young people and draw them back to the Church. In fact he drew in many believers and truly revitalized the Catholic Church. He was also baptized in the Holy Spirit, prayed in tongues, and promoted the spirit-filled Catholic movement. In addition he had faith for the joining together of Catholics and Protestants.

Of course there are biblical and political positions that Pope Francis embraced that we take issue with. This does not mean however we should break oneness with Catholics or stop praying for them. Catholics make up a little more than fifty per cent of all Christians. Therefore who the Pope is and what he stands for is important for all Christians. The conclave for the selection of the next Pope is coming up, and we must pray that the new Pope continues the progress made under Francis.

Unfortunately many Protestants do not even consider Catholics to be Christians and exclude them from the Body of Christ. This belief is not only incorrect, but it also plays into the hands of satan, who by dividing Protestants and Catholics effectively splits the Body of Christ down the middle. Our oneness is our power in the world of spirit and satan would like nothing more than to reverse the oneness we have attained. That is why it is crucial to pray for the upcoming conclave and the selection of a new Pope. Please reject satan’s lies and pray to create the Pope who will be the voice for oneness, for functioning in the Holy Spirit, and for God's unbreakable covenant with the Jews and the land of Israel.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 5:14. “You are the light of the world.”

• Philippians 2:13. “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

• Matthew 22:36–40. “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD … WITH ALL YOUR MIND.”

• Luke 10:26–27. “YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD … WITH ALL YOUR MIND.”

Quotes:

• “What he did in many ways was groundbreaking. And I know that there are people who criticize some of the ground that he broke. He was a little too liberal and got out of being biblically sound. But I feel like what is important to me are all the things he did that were so positive.”

• “When you're developing oneness, you're not afraid to bring up problems. But you keep the oneness moving because at some point I believe the Holy Spirit is like a river and things are purified as they move.”

• “We as Christians need to be able to move in our intercession to see change come in the world. We are the light of the world and we need to be on top of our game as the Body of Christ right now.”

Takeaways:

1. Our involvement in 2013 with the World Youth Day in Brazil was our introduction to a relationship with Pope Francis as well as with the Catholic Church. This has been a deep relationship with many Catholics that continues to this day. We joined with Pope Francis in his heart to see the joining together of Catholics and Protestants. We continue to have faith for and work with believers to expand this oneness in the Body of Christ.

2. The deep division in Christianity between Protestants and Catholics is something very destructive to the oneness we need as the Body of Christ. Our oneness is what makes our intercession effective in changing the world. We must see this division come to an end.

3. Protestants need to come to grips with the fact that the selection of a new Pope will greatly impact the faith of the Body of Christ moving forward. Instead of focusing on doctrinal issues, we need to see the will of God and the Kingdom of God brought to bear in what is taking place in Rome. Do not think that satan will not be fighting with everything within him to prevent the will of God from happening.

4. Let your prayers turn loose the creative power of God within you. He is in you to will and to do of His good pleasure. Therefore do not just pray for God to do something. In your meditation move by the Spirit to create the new Pope by your prayers.

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Web Description: After a vision of men turning away from evil because of the force of the Kingdom of God in the spirit realm, Gary laid out a burden for greater effectiveness in our prayers to see real change happen in the earth. Our meditation should be something that connects with the Kingdom of God that we have already received and then manifests the power of God in the earth from within us.

Show Notes: Daniel saw the Son of Man come up to God from where He was given “dominion, glory, and a kingdom.” He saw this before Christ ascended to the Father, which to us is a past event. But Daniel was beholding the reality of Christ’s Kingdom in the spirit world where there is no past or future. There is only now. God is not bound by time. He is always in the present, and with Him all things exist, and all things are possible in the present. And whenever we are in His world, we are in the realm where nothing is impossible.

Christ said that where He is, His servants will be also. If there is anything we want to see happen on earth by our prayers, it is from this realm where Christ is. It will happen through His unlimited power that moves within us. If we want to change the world, then the change happens within us before it impacts the world. This aspect of God moving from within rather than outside of us is an experience Christians need on a greater level.

Prayer is a matter of asking God for something. But we are usually praying outside of ourselves for something to happen outside of ourselves. In meditation, however, we are wanting to connect with God’s unlimited power within us from where God will move in the earth. Instead of something we avoid, meditation should be something we work at to become aware of the Holy Spirt and the power of God within us, just as Christ and the apostle Paul taught. Let us reach into the realm where God’s Kingdom is not a future event but an ever-present force that we turn loose in the earth.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 3:20. “Now to Him who is able to do … according to the power that works within us.”

• Zechariah 4:6. “‘Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the LORD of hosts.”

• Mark 11:24. “All things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them.”

• Matthew 6:9–10. “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done.”

• John 14:23. “We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

• John 12:26. “Where I am, there My servant will be also.”

• Galatians 5:25. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

• Daniel 7:13–14. “With the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man … came up to the Ancient of Days.”

• Acts 1:9. “He was lifted up while they were looking on, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.”

• Isaiah 9:6–7. “There will be no end to the increase of His government … from then on and forevermore.”

• Psalm 2:1–8. “I have installed My King upon Zion, My holy mountain.”

Quotes:

• “The spirit world that is demonic in its moving and possessing people is driving a lot of the activities that we see on a natural level. But we know that it's rooted and initiated out of the spirit world. It's coming from that realm, and we know that it has to be changed from that realm.”

• “We should be living in this realm where we have free access to the totality of God's creation, and we can connect with the things that are available to us.”

• “God said, ‘I have installed my King on the throne in Zion.’ It has taken place. We shouldn't be praying for it to take place. We should be connecting with it and letting the reality of it begin to be the vibrational power that is exuding from us, that is impacting the world around us.”

Takeaways:

1. We have seen prayer, intercession, and fasting. But what we have not seen are the results we need in the physical, natural world outside of us. That is because the evil we see in the world is being initiated by and controlled from the spirit realm. If we want to see it change in the physical realm, then we need to change it in the spirit realm.

2. Paul had spiritual experiences and wrote that believers would have them as well. He taught about finding how the unlimited power within us is expressed from us and through us. However, the Church lost something when it lost the practice of what came to be looked upon as Eastern style meditation. Yet we must find the way to turn loose the power of God that is within us.

3. Daniel saw that Christ was given the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God exists now in the spirit realm. So our prayers are not about believing that God will do something outside of ourselves sometime in the future. It is about believing that we have received His Kingdom now and it actually comes within us. His Kingdom is expressed in the earth from us and through us.

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Web Description: The book of Zechariah records the specific day on which Zechariah’s prophecy was voiced. This emphasizes the significance of this prophecy and how much we should be expecting God to fulfill His Word in our day. We look eagerly for the fulfillment of these promises of God’s blessings on Judah, Israel, and Jerusalem. This is the day they come to pass.

Show Notes: The prophecy of Zechariah is one of the greatest messianic prophecies that we have. And in Zechariah 1:7, we are given the exact day when that prophecy came. The significance of this became very real as we recorded this podcast on the very same date approximately 2,548 years later. God was making a point by naming the specific day when the prophecy was voiced. Every year on that date we are reminded that there is a day when that prophecy will be fulfilled. Today could be that day.

There is no reason that today cannot be that day because we are seeing the fulfillment of the Word of the Lord over His land and over His people. Zechariah’s prophecy records God declaring to the nations, “For while I was only a little angry, they furthered the disaster. Therefore … I will return to Jerusalem with compassion.” However, He will “throw down the horns of the nations who have lifted up their horns against the land of Judea.” Today we see the nations gathered against Israel like never before. And today could be the fulfillment of this prophecy that God’s justice will be revealed against the nations who have sought to destroy Israel.

Jeremiah’s prophecy, stamped by God with a date, is about the return of the Lord. And as we see God’s blessing return to the land of Israel, we can look with anticipation for the coming of Messiah who will dwell in their midst and “possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.” This can be the day that it comes to pass.

Key Verses:

• Zechariah 1:1–6. “In accordance with our ways and our deeds, so He has dealt with us.”

• Zechariah 1:7–21. “The LORD will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.’”

• Zechariah 2:1–13. “The LORD will possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

Quotes:

• “The land of Judah, by the way, is known as the West Bank. The Lord will possess the West Bank as His portion in the Holy Land and will again choose Jerusalem.”

• “The Lord of hosts will bring His hosts with Him to bring justice and judgment into the world. And I believe that it's the time.”

• “We bless Jerusalem. We bless Israel. We bless the Jewish people. And we believe that it's time for the return of the Lord. We believe that it's time, as it says in verse 11, ‘Many nations will join themselves to the Lord in that day and will become My people.’”

Takeaways:

1. The time when Zechariah made his prophecy is time-stamped with a precise date, to the very day. It came on a specific day, and it will be fulfilled on a specific day. That day could be today.

2. Zechariah prophesied that God will bless Judah and Israel and deal with the nations who used His discipline of His people as an excuse for destruction. Today, when the nations could not be more against Israel and the Jewish people, could be the day this prophecy is fulfilled.

3. This is a prophecy about the reign of Messiah, about God turning to His people as they turn to Him, about many nations joining themselves to the Lord, and about God repossessing the land of Judah and Israel and taking Jerusalem as the holy city. We look for these things to come to pass.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: The Lord begged the church in Laodicea to open the door to Him, so He could dine with them. This need to dine with God does not make sense to our Christian thinking. But it makes total sense in the Hebraic context of making a covenant over a meal. God is knocking on the door of the Church in this day. And regardless of how far removed we are from Him, if we open the door, He will make a covenant with us to bring us into everything He has promised.

Show Notes: The Laodicean church was a lost church, having fallen away from God. Yet Laodicea received one of the greatest opportunities offered to any church mentioned in Revelation. No matter what their violations were or how far they had fallen, Christ was knocking at their door asking to come in. Like Laodicea our nation has moved far away from God. But the opportunity remains the same. Christ is standing at the door knocking because He wants to be let back into our lives and our society. No matter how great the violations have been, He wants to meet with us again.

He wants us to come in and dine with Him. This is what happens when we open the door to the Lord. He sits down with us, and we have a meal together. Why is that important? It was during meals that covenants and agreements were made. For the covenant at Sinai, God instructed Moses to bring the elders of Israel up the mountain where they had a meal together with the Lord. Christ declared a new covenant in His blood at a Passover meal with His disciples.

Along with God coming back into our lives, He wants to make a new agreement, in other words, a new covenant with us. Even though we have strayed far away from Him like the church in Laodicea, God wants to make a new agreement with us to walk with Him. As Christians we have failed God just as Israel failed Him at Sinai. But God already knows we are going to fail. The point is that He is always there knocking on the door of our hearts, and we can let Him in. We can let Him make a new covenant with each of us to write His Word on our hearts and lead us into a greater oneness with Him.

Key Verses:

• Revelation 3:20. “If anyone … opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him.”

• 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. “He took the cup also after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood.’”

• Exodus 24:3–11. “They saw God, and they ate and drank.”

• Jeremiah 31:31–34. “I will make a new covenant.”

• Romans 8:3. “What the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did.”

Quotes:

• “When Christ is standing at the door knocking, He's not just planning to come in to us and abide with us. He's saying, ‘I’m going to dine with you.’ And I believe He's pointing to the fact that there will be a new covenant that will be made.”

• “Christ is saying, ‘Look, I'm standing at the door and knocking.’ He is not talking to Israel here. In the book of Revelation, in chapter 3, He's talking to a church. He's talking to the Christians saying, ‘You guys have really failed Me in this. But I'm not rejecting you, just as I'm not rejecting Israel.’”

• “As Christ knew the Father when He was here, I believe there is more for us. And I believe that there is a meal that's waiting—a time of dining with Christ where He will bring an impartation to us that will be a new knowledge, a new understanding of Him, and a new way of walking with Him and the Father.”

Takeaways:

1. In Revelation 3, we read Christ saying to Laodicea, “I stand at the door and knock; if anyone … opens the door, I will … dine with him.” Why would the Lord want to dine with us? We can understand that when we understand that covenants were made during a meal. God wants to make a covenant with us.

2. Christians have used the new covenant as a means of anti-Semitism, claiming that God rejected Israel because they failed the covenant at Sinai. But in the new covenant promised to Judah and Israel, God promises to accept them in spite of their failure. Laodicea represents the failure of Christians, but Christ also wanted to make a new covenant with them.

3. The promise of the new covenant is that we will all know Him, from the least to the greatest. But we are still being taught about God by someone else or by the history of religion or doctrine. We need to open the door to Him and receive from Him a new impartation of knowing the Father.

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Web Description: At the Passover God delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt to bring them into the land He had promised their fathers. But their focus was on the difficulties that this deliverance meant to the life they had adapted to. Moving from our present age into God’s Kingdom can also feel like a disruption to the life we are comfortable with in this world. Our focus must be on His Kingdom and not on the difficulties of deliverance.

Show Notes: Passover celebrates the deliverance of Israel from their slavery in Egypt. When they first heard that the Lord had come down to deliver them, the children of Israel rejoiced and worshipped God. They were so thankful that He had heard their cries and was going to do something for them. Then Pharaoh made their bondage more severe. Suddenly, the process of deliverance was not as wonderful as they thought it would be.

The Israelites had a difficult life in Egypt, but they were conditioned to being slaves. As difficult as their situation was, it had been their lifestyle for around four hundred years. When God began to deliver them, they faced major disruptions to what had become their comfort zone. As Christians today we too have adapted to a world that has grown increasingly wicked and oppressive. We want deliverance from the bondage of this age. But when God begins to move, that will inevitably mean disrupting our comfort zones.

People tend to be fearful of the end-times. But the end-times are when God delivers us from the bondages we have to this age as He brings the age of His Kingdom. During these days we might go through many difficult things. And our deliverance at times might disrupt us and confuse us because we have adapted to life under this bondage. Let us therefore keep our focus on the Lord and what He has promised in His Word, not murmuring and complaining about our circumstances but rejoicing in His Kingdom.

Key Verses:

• Exodus 3:7–8. “I have … given heed to their cry. … So I have come down to deliver them.”

• Exodus 4:29–31. “They heard that the LORD was concerned about the sons of Israel.”

• Exodus 5:1–2. “I do not know the LORD, and besides, I will not let Israel go.”

• Exodus 5:10–19. “Complete your work quota, your daily amount, just as when you had straw.”

• John 12:31. “The ruler of this world will be cast out.”

• Exodus 5:20–23. “You have made us odious in Pharaoh’s sight.”

• Exodus 14:11–12. “It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.”

• Psalms 106:6–12. “Our fathers in Egypt did not understand Your wonders.”

• Deuteronomy 6:20–23. “He brought us out from there in order to bring us in.”

Quotes:

• “For the last seventy or more years, we have seen things moving in a negative direction as far as things about society and morality, about Judeo-Christian values no longer being a focal point. There's a lot that's gone on, and yet it's happened over a slow period of time. And as it has happened, we have gotten more and more used to it.”

• “God is delivering us and yet at the same time there are a few difficulties with deliverance. And those difficulties really are found within our own hearts and what has happened to us by the influence of what we've lived under for our lifetime.”

• “They couldn't remember the wonders of what God had done in delivering them from Egypt. And this is the attitude that we find sometimes ourselves fighting. It can be very uncomfortable to really face what's necessary in being delivered by God.”

Takeaways:

1. God is bringing the end of this age to bring us into the age of His Kingdom where Messiah reigns as King. We may not find this process or even His Kingdom in alignment with our comfort zone.

2. It might be a difficult transition. But God in His love, grace, and kindness is bringing us out of all our conditionings to a dying age. And He is reconditioning us to be able to live in the days of His Kingdom. We open our hearts to this experience of Passover.

3. When God brings deliverance, we cannot be so focused on our temporary circumstances that we murmur and complain against God. Let us stay focused on the promises of His Kingdom.

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Web Description: Christianity is suffering tribulation today even if we as individuals feel unaffected by it. We need to be one with our fellow Christians who are suffering and be praying for them. Let us not be fearful of what satan might do to us because Christ defeated him at the cross. Even if we must face death ourselves, we overcome satan by simply exercising Christ’s victory.

Show Notes: The Lord said to the church in Smyrna, “I know your tribulation and your poverty.” Just as God knew then what the Christians in Smyrna were suffering, He is aware of what Christians are suffering today. And there are many Christians today who live under tribulation and endure great poverty. These are not people with whom we have no connection. They are fellow members of the Body of Christ with whom we are one. We should be aware of their suffering and be crying out to God for them.

According to Open Doors, a group that ministers to persecuted Christians, more than 380 million Christians worldwide suffer persecution and discrimination. This is the reality surrounding all of us in Christianity right now. We should be aware of it, and we should be prepared for however God would lead us. The Lord said to Smyrna, “Do not fear … Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.” We should not be fearful even if it means giving our lives for Christ, just as many believers are doing today.

Maybe you believe in the rapture and are planning to escape tribulation. That does not change the fact that many Christians are now in tribulation, experiencing hunger, imprisonment, and even death for His sake. We should remove any fear from our hearts and refuse to be separated from the suffering of our brothers and sisters in Christ. Let us deliberately study and become aware of what is really transpiring in Christianity throughout the world we live in. We need to be interceding for the Body of Christ in this day.

Key Verses:

• Revelation 2:8–11. “I know your tribulation and your poverty.”

• Revelation 12:9–12. “They did not love their life even when faced with death.”

• Romans 16:20. “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”

Quotes:

• “Even if you say, ‘Well, I am not suffering,’ be aware that your brothers and sisters are suffering potentially great tribulations and also poverty.”

• “We need to reach in for a faith before the Lord that gives us a freedom from fear and allows us to recognize that satan is on the earth raging. And he is casting believers into prison and people are being tested in their faith and there will be tribulations that come.”

• “As believers in this day and age, facing the raging of Satan in the earth in this time, we must not be fearful. We must not love our lives unto death. And we must be ready to sacrifice and give our life if that is what is necessary because this battle will rage. But we know that the battle will be won because it has already been won on the cross.”

Takeaways:

1. Much of the Body of Christ today lives in the midst of tribulation and poverty. We need to put some time into studying what is happening to believers throughout the world, become aware of what they are suffering, and intercede for them.

2. As Christians there is no guarantee that we will escape tribulation. Many Christians are already suffering from satan’s raging and it could happen to any of us. The Lord told the church in Smyrna not to be fearful. And we should ask the Lord to remove any fearfulness from our hearts.

3. Those who overcame satan loved not their lives even when faced with death. Even if we die in this war with satan, we have the promise of the crown of life and freedom from the second death. So we exercise Christ’s victory over death and become those who cast satan from this earth.

Links:

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Web Description: The religion of their day prevented many from receiving Christ when He appeared in the flesh. Religion is no different in our day. Religion tends to establish orthodox interpretations about God rather than lead us into a relationship with God. However, the promise is that we will all know the Lord. And we need to honestly deal with that which prevents us from knowing Him, even if it is our own religious thinking.

Show Notes: It is important to understand the degree to which our lack of awareness is based on our religious upbringing. Religious orthodoxy encourages us—demands even—to close off to anything new. This makes it difficult for us to develop an awareness of God’s moving in the present because it might fly in the face of doctrines we learned in church, Bible school, or seminary.

Many people rejected Christ because His actions and teachings seemed not to fit the orthodoxy of their day. Orthodoxy today has the same effect of hindering rather than helping our relationship with God. Religion emphasizes doctrines that build walls around concepts about God rather than emphasizing a relationship with Him. Just look at the history of Christianity. Has the process of protecting doctrines and orthodoxy in the Church resulted in people knowing the Lord? It seems like it has resulted in divisions, accusations of heresy, and persecution.

We do not want to reject a true moving of God today because it does not fit our concepts of orthodoxy. The disciples who stayed with Yeshua (Jesus) when His statements challenged their orthodoxy did so because of their relationship with Him. The emphasis of Christianity must be our relationship with Christ. We do not need more teaching that builds denominational walls to protect our understanding of the Bible. We need to be taught a relationship with the Lord so that everyone comes to know Him. Father, bring us out of religion into a relationship with You.

Key Verses:

• John 5:8–16. “It is the Sabbath, and it is not permissible for you to carry your pallet.”

• John 5:17–19. “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

• John 5:39. “You search the Scriptures; … it is these that testify about Me.”

• John 17:20–22. “… that they may be one, just as We are one.”

• John 6:44–52. “How can this man give us His flesh to eat?”

• John 6:63–69. “We have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”

• Jeremiah 31:33–34. “They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them.”

Quotes:

• “With God nothing is impossible. Yet religion says almost everything is impossible. Everything is wrong that doesn't line up to the orthodoxy that has been developed.”

• “If all it takes is reading the Bible to have understanding of exactly what God is saying and what He's wanting, then I don't think we would be at this place of having all these thousands of denominations surrounding us at this time.”

• “We can read the Bible, and we can have it be totally beyond our ability to grasp what is being spoken. And that's where the Holy Spirit comes in—in the relationship with the Holy Spirit who comes to us from the Father.”

Takeaways:

1. Yeshua functioned according to a relationship with the Father and not according to religious orthodoxy. Scholars who knew the Scriptures but did not know the Father rejected Yeshua on the basis of orthodoxy and religion as they knew it.

2. Christian scholars have persecuted the Jews as well as other Christians based on their understanding of the Bible. Establishing orthodoxy by the Scriptures has not led to a greater knowledge of God. It has divided Christians into thousands of denominations. The only way we will have the oneness Christ desires will be through a relationship with Him.

3. We do not want the Lord’s coming to be like a thief in the night because we are unaware of Him. We do not want to reject God’s moving today because of our orthodoxy. We need the relationship with God that hears His voice and understands what He is telling us.

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Web Description: The Scriptures warn us that just as we are unaware of a thief at night, we could be unaware of the Lord’s appearing. Perhaps the greatest problem we face is not the circumstances in the world but our own unawareness of God. It is imperative that we seek the Lord for a greater awareness and understanding of what He is saying and doing today.

Show Notes: A characteristic of the end-time is the unawareness on people. We see this in the flood of anti-Semitism that is moving through the world today and even sweeping through many churches. What enables the anti-Semitism is a tremendous unawareness of what God has spoken in the Scriptures, which is that He has never abandoned His people Israel, and He will fulfill every Word He has given them. The unawareness of what God is saying is where deceptions take root and where we miss the purposes of God in the earth.

God spoke through Isaiah, “Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; will you not be aware of it?” We have to be aware of what God is going to do today and not depend on our understanding of what God did in the past. Again we read in Isaiah, “I proclaim to you new things; … before today you have not heard them.” We may be confident that we know what to do today because we have heard what God did yesterday. But what if God proclaims something we have never heard before?

God is speaking today to our generation. But will we hear Him and will we understand what He is saying? Samuel at first did not understand what God was saying to Him. He had to learn the voice of the Lord. Samuel grew and became a prophet who knew and taught what God was speaking to Israel during his time. And Christians today need to seek the Lord until we like Samuel can hear the voice of God, understand what He is saying, and be those to show this generation the new thing God is doing now.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 43:18–21. “Behold, I will do something new; … will you not be aware of it?”

• Isaiah 42:8–10. “Now I declare new things; before they spring forth I proclaim them to you.”

• 1 Samuel 3:2–11. “Speak, LORD, for Your servant is listening.”

• Isaiah 48:3–9. “I proclaim to you new things from this time.”

• 1 Thessalonians 5:1–9. “So then let us not sleep as others do, but let us be alert and sober.”

• Luke 21:29–36. “Keep on the alert at all times.”

• 2 Peter 3:10. “The day of the Lord will come like a thief.”

• Revelation 3:3. “If you do not wake up, I will come like a thief.”

• Mark 13:31–33. “Take heed, keep on the alert.”

• Matthew 24:37–39. “They did not understand until the flood came and took them all away.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:1–16. “A natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God; … he cannot understand them.”

Quotes:

• “If we want to be fearful of something, we should be fearful of our unawareness.”

• “What Christ represented in the earth was One who knew the Father, One who heard the voice of the Father, One who saw the Father and had the exact understanding of what God was doing. So He was able to manifest it before people.”

• “Recognize that what seems to be playing itself out in great wisdom and understanding and taking over the earth is actually functioning out of an unawareness and an inability to understand what God is doing.”

• “We're not learning about the things of this world, the things outside. We're learning the things of the Spirit so that we hear the voice of the Spirit; we hear the voice of the Lord.”

Takeaways:

1. Being fearful and concerned about world events means our focus is wrong. Our focus should be on what God is doing inside of us and not on what is happening outside of us. What matters to God is that we understand the wisdom and mysteries that He is unfolding to enable us to walk through these days.

2. God is going to do something new. And the concern is that we His people could miss what He is doing because of our unawareness. Within the Church today there must come a greater awareness of what God is speaking.

3. The challenge is not to become biblical scholars but to hear the voice of the Lord. Not only do we need to hear the voice of the Lord, but we also need to understand what He is saying to us right now. We need to be His prophets through whom He can move in this age.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: In the story of Esther, the king was not personally involved in delivering the Jews from the destruction imposed by Haman. However, his signet ring in the hand of Mordecai gave Mordecai all the king’s authority and power to deliver the Jews as if he were the king himself. Likewise through the name of Yeshua (Jesus), we have been given the signet ring of God Himself. Let us accept who we are as His instruments and use His authority and power to bring Christ’s deliverance to the earth.

Show Notes: In the story of Esther, King Ahasuerus gave his signet ring to Mordecai. Esther and Mordecai then used that ring to seal a decree against those who were attacking the Jews. Having the king’s signet ring in those days meant having the power of the king himself. A decree sealed by the signet ring had to be obeyed and could never be revoked. As Christians we also believe in using the King’s signet ring, the name of Yeshua (Jesus), to accomplish the will of God.

We need to acknowledge that this is how God moves. When He works to brings deliverance, as the king did with Esther and Mordecai, God uses human instruments to bring about His will. God did not come down and deliver Israel from Egypt by Himself. He used Moses as His instrument. Again, God did not redeem humanity on His own. The Father chose to move through His Son. Then after Christ had ascended to the right hand of the Father, He moved through the apostle Paul to fulfill the sufferings of His Body.

We live in a time when the world has a desperate need for God, and as the Body of Christ today we must begin to accept what we are. As He has done in so many ages, God is going to work through vessels that He chooses and who are willing to give themselves for that purpose. Open your heart to that which God wants to do through you. Be open to receive the signet ring of anointing and authority that God can place upon you to work through you for His purposes to bring about the conclusion of this age.

Key Verses:

• Esther 8:2–8. “The king took off his signet ring … and gave it to Mordecai.”

• John 5:17–23. “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”

• Colossians 1:13–24. “All things have been created through Him and for Him.”

• Colossians 1:29. “I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.”

• John 14:12. “He who believes in Me … greater works than these he will do.”

• Esther 4:12–14. “Who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

Quotes:

• “What God was doing in bringing Christ forth in the flesh—bringing the Word into flesh—is He was manifesting Himself in humanity so that He would move in full power and authority through Christ as His human vessel and representative.”

• “We don't want the Body of Christ to be perishing in this time because we refuse to take our place in what God has called us to do.”

• “We may be facing threatening times. It may even seem like there is a decree of death and destruction on this age, on the Church, and on God's people—the Jewish people in Israel. But who knows whether we are not the ones who have come into this anointing and relationship with the Lord for such a time as this. Let's believe that God can work in us and through us to accomplish His will in this day.”

Takeaways:

1. The king giving his signet ring to Mordecai represents an important aspect of Purim. When sealed with the signet ring, whatever Esther and Mordecai enacted had the full authority and power of the king behind it. When we act in the name of Christ, it is like having God’s signet ring, bearing His authority, power, and presence.

2. God chooses to move through human instruments just as the king did through Esther and Mordecai. We have examples of this in Moses, Yeshua, and Paul. If we want the authority and power of God to impact this age, then we need to be God’s instruments.

3. Haman once had the king’s signet ring and had the power to destroy all the Jews. Their deliverance happened when the king took the signet ring from Haman and gave it to Mordecai. As ruler of this world, satan also had the authority to destroy mankind. But that authority has been removed from him and belongs to Christ. As instruments of Christ, using His authority, we can abolish the decree of destruction against mankind.

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Web Description:

Get out of your mind that you are here on the earth by happenstance, wondering, “Why am I here? What is my purpose?” Instead of spending a lifetime trying to answer those questions, simply know that you were brought to birth by the will of God to be on earth at this time. And God is working in you and through you to accomplish exactly what He wants to accomplish.

Show Notes: There is so much confusion in this age that it can be overwhelming. This level of confusion can lead people to feel ineffective in their lives and even develop a sense of uselessness or depression. We see then how confusion is a tactic of satan. If he can keep us confused about who we are, what we are to do, and how we are to do it, then he can keep us from moving with the power and authority we need. This confusion is the opposite of what believers are to have in Christ.

As a believer it must be real to you that you were not born by the will of man nor of the will of flesh. You were born by the will of God, and you are here on this earth at this time with a purpose in God. God is also at work in you to work His purposes and His pleasure in this earth. Therefore, you do not have to go it alone, trying to work things out by yourself. You have the force of God Himself, Christ, and the Holy Spirit working within you to accomplish this purpose.

If we could get this understanding that we are brought forth by His will, then we would begin to flow with our time here on earth, rather than fight it. Are you wondering, “What is it all about? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to become what God wants?” Instead, keep rehearsing John 1:13 and say, “I am born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” Let there be an assurance that God is working His will in us and through us. And that purpose can flow in us and through us without the uncertainty we often struggle with.

Key Verses:

• John 1:9–13. “… born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

• James 1:16–18. “In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth.”

• Philippians 2:12–13. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who is at work in you.”

• 1 Peter 1:22–23. “You have been born again … through the living and enduring word of God.”

• Ephesians 1:1–14. “We have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose.”

Quotes:

• “We must be unwavering in the fact that we are here by the will of God with that purpose in God, and we are able to reach in by the Holy Spirit to find the revelation of that, and begin to move with great clarity and force in our hearts.”

• “This is not some flash-in-the-pan existence that we're part of. This is part of our eternity with Him in an eternal life. We are living in God. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”

• “What a privilege we have! What an honor we have to be part of God summing up all things in Christ, both things in the heavens and the things that are in the earth! And we are brought forth by His will to have a purpose in fulfilling and concluding His great purpose.”

Takeaways:

1. It is necessary, especially in this generation, not to be caught up in the confusion of this age. The demonic realm is driven to keep us in confusion to prevent us from moving in power and authority with clarity about our purpose.

2. It is a great necessity for believers to really grasp the fact that we are born by the will of God, that we are here at this time in history by the will of God, that we are here with a purpose from God. And we must move forward and accomplish that purpose.

3. We are not part of some temporary existence that we have to work out by ourselves. He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world and created us by the living and abiding Word of God. Our life on earth is part of our eternal life in God who is working in us to accomplish His will.

4. There may be a mystery in His will, but He will make it known to you if you seek Him. But seek Him knowing that you are born by the will of God, brought forth for His purpose, and you are simply clarifying that which you know to be true about yourself.

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Web Description: The parable of the king who invited guests to his wedding feast is something we want to apply to our hearts today. God has made a great provision of salvation through the sacrifice of His Son on the cross. It is His free gift to us by His grace, but we still must show up before Him and appropriate all that He has made available. This means we need to get rid of any excuses and everything that we would value more than God’s great provision. Lord, help us to come before You with prepared hearts, worshipping You with thankfulness for all You have given us.

Show Notes: Yeshua (Jesus) told a parable of a king who prepared a wedding feast, but the invited guests were unwilling to attend. Like this king, God has prepared a feast at great expense and has invited everyone to freely partake of it. In the sacrifice of His Son on the cross, God has provided salvation, healing, and all things pertaining to our life and godliness. As Christians we could feel like we have already accepted this invitation. But could that attitude be limiting how much we really should be receiving from the Lord?

According to this parable, those invited to the wedding feast made excuses for not attending. These excuses were rooted in personal pursuits they deemed more important than the king’s offer. Are we guilty of the same kinds of excuses regarding God’s provision? Maybe we are not overtly refusing Him, but we can easily be so focused on the concerns of our lives that we do not give the attention we need to the appropriation of all God has made available.

What keeps us from daily relating to the Lord in prayer, meditation, and waiting on Him? The root of the problem is explained in this parable. Those who skipped the king’s feast or attacked his servants or did not prepare to appear before him did so because they did not value what the king offered. So we ask God to forgive us for placing value on earthly things that are truly worthless in comparison to our eternity in His Kingdom. Let our thankfulness and appreciation for everything He did in giving us His Son be expressed through our daily appearance before Him, with prepared hearts to partake of His great provision.

Key Verses:

• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

• Matthew 22:1–14. “Those who had been invited to the wedding feast … were unwilling to come.”

• Luke 14:16–20. “They all alike began to make excuses.”

• Isaiah 53:2–8. “He was despised and forsaken of men, … but He was pierced through for our transgressions.”

Quotes:

• “It's time for us to get rid of our excuses. We need to evaluate, in repentance and humility, the excuses that we make before God on a daily basis of why we can't seem to show up for what He's made available.”

• “Are we just going about our own business? Are we just paying attention to whatever concerns we have in our life and realizing that, yeah, the provision may be there, and He may have made all this available to us, but it's not getting the notice from us and driving us into the appropriation of all that He's made.”

• “The first thing we should do is spend the time with Him. Come before that cross. You know that cross is available every minute of every day. Every second that cross stands and we can touch it. We can embrace it. We can receive all that it holds within its power to heal us, to restore us to the Father.”

Takeaways:

1. As we read the parable of the king’s wedding invitation, we want to feel the depths of God’s love for us to restore us to Himself through the suffering and death of His Son—and His anger if we hold His provision lightly.

2. Many who were invited were unwilling to attend the wedding. This should challenge us to examine our own hearts. If we are willing, then what energy are we putting into what God has set before us? Are we coming to Him daily to appropriate all the provision He has made?

3. Many seized the king’s messengers, mistreated them, and killed them. The king was very angry with the persecutors and brought judgment on them. We can see God’s anger at those today who have such disregard for all God did to give us salvation that they persecute, and even kill, those who bring His message of grace.

4. Some showed up to the wedding but were not wearing the wedding garments, and the king threw them out. There still must be a preparation of our hearts to go before the Lord. It is offensive to God that we have so little regard for His effort to give us salvation that we make no effort to prepare ourselves to meet Him.

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Web Description: If God put us in this world by His will, then we accept that He has enabled us to do His will. That means whatever He makes real to us in His Word is not something only for the past or waiting for the future. His Word is something He wants us to walk in now. Therefore, we ask God’s help to end our double-mindedness by making our conscious and subconscious minds a united force to manifest His Word in the present.

Show Notes: As Christians we believe that the Scriptures are the Word of God. But we need to change our conditioning that relegates everything in the Scriptures to the past or the future. The Word of God must be our present reality. It is not enough to mentally accept that Christ was resurrected in the past and by virtue of that determine we will have a resurrection in the future. Instead, we need to believe without wavering that Yeshua (Jesus) is, as He said, the resurrection and the life, and we can therefore experience the power of His resurrection and life in our own lives at this very moment.

God is speaking to us now in the present, but what hinders our effectiveness is this duplicity in our thinking that prevents us from experiencing it in the present. James wrote that a double-minded person should not expect to receive anything from God, and the reality is that we are by nature double-minded. We have a conscious mind and a subconscious mind, and those two minds are not necessarily in sync. We live crossing ourselves out more than we recognize because our conscious and subconscious minds are at odds with each other.

You can determine with your conscious mind to walk in the Word and then fail to even get started because your subconscious mind is not engaged in carrying out your conscious decision. We live mainly in our conscious mind because that is what we know how to relate to. But our subconscious mind is what makes the planning of our conscious mind active and operational in the present moment. With the Holy Spirit’s help, we apply the force of our subconscious mind to take the Word that we understand with our conscious mind and make it our present and active reality.

Key Verses:

• John 1:13. “… born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

• Philippians 2:13. “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

• Luke 17:21. “The kingdom of God is in your midst [or within you].”

• Matthew 28:20. “I am with you always.”

• James 1:5–8. “That man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man.”

• James 4:8. “Purify your hearts, you double-minded.”

• Isaiah 54:17. “No weapon that is formed against you will prosper.”

• 1 Peter 2:24. “By His wounds you were healed.”

• John 11:21–26. “I am the resurrection and the life.”

• Roman 13:14. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Quotes:

• “Our subconscious mind does not flow with our conscious mind. These two things are not necessarily in sync with each other and a lot of problems are born out of that.”

• “How do we get to oneness? We've got to get to oneness in ourselves, and it has a lot to do with the Holy Spirit. It has a lot to do with learning our subconscious mind the way we know our conscious mind.”

• “My subconscious mind has to be brought into unification with my conscious mind and vice versa in order for me to live in the present moment. And if I don't do that, then I'm constantly living in this throwback of the past or the future. And there's no power in that.”

Takeaways:

1. When God says that you are here, not by the will of flesh nor by the will of man, but by the will of God, then you must take that in your mind and make that your present reality and reject anything that says anything different. If God’s Word is true, then it is true now.

2. It is not enough to know and teach the Word. We have to know how to manifest the Word. Not manifesting it now in our lives puts the Word into the future or keeps it in the past.

3. Even though we love the Word and have tried to walk in the Word, we are confronted with the fact that a double-minded person receives nothing from God. It is our double-minded nature that crosses out the effectiveness of the Word.

4. Instead of only mentally accepting the Word with our conscious mind, we need to involve the capabilities of our subconscious mind to keep the Word active and functioning in the present moment.

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Web Description: God is not limited by time. Why should we be? Christ went to the cross two thousand years ago, and yet we experience salvation through that cross as if it happens for us the moment we believe. Even people of faith, who lived before Christ, reached into the power of the cross long before it happened. We need to change our focus from the physical realm bound by time to the eternal realm where everything God did in the past or will do in the future is available now for us to walk in.

Show Notes: The Scriptures consistently emphasize the freedom and liberty we are to walk in. According to the Word of God, there is nothing lacking in the power of Christ's blood shed on the cross. There is nothing lacking in the power of His death, burial, and resurrection for our fullness of life and complete healing of every affliction. However, there are obstacles within us that seem to hinder us from fully experiencing the power we are meant to have. It is one thing to know what the Word says. We also must know how to implement that Word in our lives.

Surprisingly, the science of quantum physics can help us with this. Scriptural concepts that make no sense according to physical laws have been observed to be a reality in the quantum realm. Long before Yeshua (Jesus) went to the cross, Isaiah wrote, “He was pierced for our transgression and by His scourging we are healed.” After Yeshua went to the cross, Peter wrote, “By His wounds you were healed.” To us in a physical realm limited by time, experiencing past or future events in the present seems impossible. Yet tests prove that the quantum realm is not limited by time.

The quantum realm is a creation of God, who Himself is not bound by time. In Him the past, present, and future all exist simultaneously at the moment. What would happen if we could experience the realm where our past and future were connected to our present? What if we could lay hold of God’s movings in the past and promises for the future and bring them into our now? Let us apply what we already know about walking with God in the Spirit and waiting on the Lord and reach into what God has for our lives today.

Key Verses:

• 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful … to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

• John 14:6. “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”

• Matthew 19:26. “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

• Hebrews 3:18–19. “They were not able to enter because of unbelief.”

• Matthew 8:1–17. “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.”

• Isaiah 53:4–5. “By His scourging we are healed.”

• 1 Peter 2:21–24. “By His wounds you were healed.”

• John 11:25. “I am the resurrection and the life.”

• Ephesians 1:5. “He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world.”

• Romans 12:2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

• Galatians 5:16. “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

• John 8:56–59. “Before Abraham was born, I am.”

• Revelation 13:8 (NASB). “… written from the foundation of the world in the book of life.”

• Revelation 13:8 (KJV). “… the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.”

• Revelation 17:8. “The beast that you saw was, and is not, and is about to come.”

Quotes:

• “God always holds the past, the present, and the future before Him in His mind. Therefore, a man of faith who comes to God may claim the promises of the past or prophecies of the future as the provision for the present moment” (John Robert Stevens).

• “What Yeshua did thousands of years ago is valid for you today. All you have to do is reach into it today and you will be healed. Just reach into the cross today and you will be saved.”

• “Abraham saw the day of Christ on the earth in the flesh. Why? He lived thousands of years in the past. Yeah, but he also knew how to get into a realm where the past and the future were his present.”

• “How does healing work right now? It happens because we get into that realm where the past, present, and future all exist at once.”

Takeaways:

1. God’s Word, His power, and the work of Christ for us are unlimited. The only limitations are in us due to impasses on a subconscious level. Religion will not help us overcome those impasses because they are more related to the scientific principles of the quantum realm.

2. The quantum realm confirms the timeless nature of God, as well as our own ability to draw from the provision of Christ, whether it occurred in the past or will occur in the future, and to walk in it at the present moment.

3. Abraham knew the day of Christ thousands of years before it happened. And to be prophets in this age, we must have an awareness of this realm where the past, present, and future exist simultaneously and then be able to manifest it.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: Is God a gentleman? Yes. When we invite Him out of the room, just like a gentleman He leaves. As we watch all the systems we trust in fall apart, we can despair and feel like there are no answers. Well, God has all the answers but we have excluded Him. We need to invite Him back in. We need to end our dependence on what we have created and put all our trust in our Creator.

Show Notes: Elijah learned an important lesson when he fled for his life to Mount Horeb. There he saw a strong wind, but God was not in the wind. Then he saw a powerful earthquake, but God was not in the earthquake. Then he saw a great fire, but God was not in the fire. In the world today we are seeing great destruction from hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires. And of course we often interpret those events as God’s judgments. But what if God is not in any of those things? Maybe we should stop blaming God for them and acknowledge that they are the result of how we as humans have lived.

In this country, as in many countries, we have taken the Lord out of our lives. We have removed Him from every aspect of our society. We have spent years putting our faith and trust in everything but the Lord. We build systems and pour money into programs to meet our needs, and before we know it, we are dependent on those things instead of on God. When those systems fail we are utterly devastated, as we saw in recent fires in California. And that was only one of many catastrophes in the world.

Our concept of the end-time is that God is directly engaged in judging people. A better understanding might be that we suffer the consequences of a lifestyle that excludes God. All the man-made systems we have put our trust in will continue to come tumbling down until we return to trusting, honoring, and glorifying God. Let us return to Him with all our hearts. Let us believe the promise that if we humble ourselves and ask the Lord’s forgiveness, He will hear from heaven and heal our land.

Key Verses:

• Proverbs 3:5–6. “Trust in the LORD … do not lean on your own understanding.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:13–14. “If … My people … humble themselves … I will hear from heaven.”

• James 4:13–15. “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.”

• 1 Corinthians 4:7. “What do you have that you did not receive?”

• John 6:53. “You have no life in yourselves.”

• 1 Kings 19:9–10. “I alone am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.”

• 1 Kings 19:11–18. “The LORD was not in the wind … not in the earthquake … not in the fire.”

• Isaiah 31:1. “Woe to those who … trust in chariots … but they do not … seek the LORD.”

Quotes:

• “Idolatry is just trusting in anything except God. And I think we do that all the time every day.”

• “We all need to humble ourselves and come before Him and say, ‘We repent of our wicked ways.’ You say, ‘Well, what's my wicked way?’ That we don't trust in Him, that we're not giving our lives to Him, that we're not honoring Him for all that He is.”

• “Whatever we've built, it's only because He's given us the ability to build. Whatever we've done, it's only because of His enabling, His wisdom, His blessing of intelligence.”

Takeaways:

1. We have grown increasingly dependent on systems that we have built ourselves. Consequently our security comes from things other than the Lord. We have worked the Lord out of our lives, out of our national institutions, out of our marketplace, out of our schools, and out of every aspect of our society.

2. When it comes to the devastating events such hurricanes, earthquakes, and fires around the world, people declare, “God is doing this. God is doing that.” The truth is that God might not be in any of those things and we are simply experiencing the results of our own lifestyle without God.

3. Like the tower of Babel, many systems among the nations will come tumbling down until humanity itself turns back to the Lord and says, “You Lord are our only God. You are the Creator of the universe and we glorify You. We honor You. We start trusting in You only, and we humbly repent where we have gone astray.

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Web Description: When judgment happens, do not blame it on God or on those who are serving God. Blame it on those who like Pharaoh refuse time and time again to humble their hearts, who refuse to open their hearts to receive the things of God and His truth, and who never stop in their commitment to destroy God’s people and His creation.

Show Notes: The Israelites learned the lesson of Pharaoh. And we need to learn that lesson or we will misinterpret God’s judgments. Why did God bring judgment after judgment on Egypt? It was because Pharaoh kept refusing the will of God to let the people of Israel go. Pharaoh kept refusing to let his power over Israel be displaced by God. This is the reason God ultimately moves in judgment. It is the refusal of rulers to let their kingdoms be displaced by the Kingdom of God.

Make no mistake, those who are fighting the Kingdom will not stop. Those who are dedicated to the destruction of Israel will never stop. Evil rulers will never stop controlling and oppressing people. Satan will never stop in his drive to destroy all flesh. People accuse God of being full of wrath and indignation. But God’s indignation is simply His response after His long-suffering has delayed judgment until it cannot be delayed any longer. He is a God of peace. But He will use whatever indignation is necessary to stop the destruction of His creation.

Do not think there is a solution for this world other than the Kingdom of God. It must come, and it must be complete. And it will come at the elimination of every kingdom that is driven by satan to refuse God’s Kingdom. We will not have a righteous world until we have a righteous King. We will not have justice until we have a righteous Judge over all the earth. And this is what is beginning to happen. The Kingdom of God is coming, and we should continue to pray for His Kingdom to come.

Key Verses:

• James 2:13. “Mercy triumphs over judgment.”

• Philippians 2:9–11. “EVERY KNEE WILL BOW … and … every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

• Isaiah 34:1–3. “For the LORD’s indignation is against all the nations.”

• Matthew 21:33–41. “When the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those vine-growers?”

• Mark 13:20. “No life would have been saved.”

• Joel 3:9–17. “Prepare a war; rouse the mighty men!”

• Exodus 10:1–3. “How long will you refuse to humble yourself before Me?”

• Romans 1:18–32. “God gave them over to a depraved mind.”

Quotes:

• “God is going to set up His Kingdom. And the end-time and the struggles of the end-time are all surrounding that reality that the Kingdom of God will be set up.”

• “I don't care what the problem is. There is no solution other than the righteous King of all the earth coming to rule and reign over all the earth.”

• “People are moving with a hard heart. Their minds are filled with futility. They're darkened in their understanding. But that's a result of their actions, not a result of God's actions.”

Takeaways:

1. Just like Pharaoh, satan will never quit. Pharaoh was bent on the destruction of Israel, and today the nations are bent on the destruction of Israel. Those wicked nations that are refusing the Kingdom of God are taking it out on Israel.

2. These nations will not stop this pursuit until they have brought complete destruction because their minds are filled with deception, their hearts are hardened, and they cannot understand the truth any longer.

3. The lesson of Pharaoh is that you cannot negotiate with someone who desires nothing but your destruction. And that is who satan is. You can never negotiate with him. He is not going to be saved. He is on one course and one course only: your destruction.

4. We have to reach into the Lord and His salvation, His truth, His righteousness, and His justice because God is getting ready to move.

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Web Description: Psalm 2 states, “The kings of the earth take their stand … against the Lord and against His Anointed.” So there should be no confusion about the conflict happening in the world. The Kingdom of God is coming, and many governments are standing against it. Yet God’s Kingdom is the answer for the world, and our focus is not on the conflict but on the solution. Father, Your Kingdom come, and Your will be done on the earth.

Show Notes: When a country goes through a change of government, it can experience turmoil. This concept helps us understand what is happening on a global scale today. The entire world is experiencing a governmental changeover as the Kingdom of God comes into the earth. And the reaction of many nations to the Kingdom of God is to reject it. They reject the laws, the conditions, and the requirements of God’s Kingdom. And so a battle ensues.

We need to understand the nature of this battle. There are many wars and rumors of wars in the world today, but the prophecies in Scripture are not about random nations fighting one another. The war against the Kingdom is the war of nations against the Jewish people. That is why we are seeing so many attacks against Israel and against Jews worldwide. It is because they are the representatives of God's Kingdom. Israel is where the Kingdom will come on the earth, and the Jews are the people from whom it manifests.

We must stay focused on what God is doing and stay free from the negativity generated by the hostility of nations against Him and His people. God’s purpose is not to bring war but to fulfill the promised blessings of His Kingdom. We might see many negative events in the days ahead, but it is important that we remember how it all turns out. Many nations and people will go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, to learn His ways and never again learn war. That is the focus of the last days, not the negative. That is our faith and intercession for His Kingdom to come.

Key Verses:

• Philippians 2:10–11. “Every knee will bow … and … every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

• Psalm 2:1–3. “The kings of the earth take their stand … against the Lord and against His Anointed.”

• John 4:22. “Salvation is from the Jews.”

• Psalm 2:4–12. “I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance.”

• Matthew 24:6. “You will be hearing of wars and rumors of wars.”

• Isaiah 34:1–3. “The Lord’s indignation is against all the nations.”

• Isaiah 2:1–4. “The law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.”

Quotes:

• “The nations are in an uproar. Why? Because the Kingdom of God is drawing nearer and nearer.”

• “I think we're at the time where the nations have chosen and taken their stand against the Lord and against His anointed.”

• “The wars will pass away. The rumors of wars will pass away. And as the Kingdom of God sets in, no longer will nation lift up its sword against another nation.”

Takeaways:

1. What we are witnessing in the world is a governmental changeover, and that is the Kingdom of God coming into the earth. This is not an easy transition as many nations, governments, and peoples will resist submitting to His Lordship.

2. The focus of resistance and opposition to the Kingdom of God is and always has been the Jewish people because the Kingdom manifests from them. That is why we see increasing attacks against them and against the Jewish homeland of Israel.

3. If the nations were able to bring peace and justice and solutions to the world’s problems, they would have done so by now. The Kingdom of God has the answers that mankind has been seeking, and we should excitedly await and strive to be a part of it.

4. We must not let our hearts become fearful or let our spirits faint. Let us proclaim His Word to break the lies that come against God’s people and against His land. Let us pray that the truth of His justice and His love be known and that His government prevails.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: We can be very concerned and even fearful about all the tumult in the world. But as Psalm 2 explains, the nations are in an uproar because they oppose the Kingdom of God. So we should not be surprised by what is happening since we are the ones praying, “Thy Kingdom come, and Thy will be done.” We should be immovable in our faith because our focus is on the Father and not on the world.

Show Notes: It is easy to worry about all the turmoil in the world right now. But the events we see taking place are no accident. And they are not without our participation as Christians. We have initiated and are initiating much of what is going on. You could say, “I’m not doing anything. How am I making these things happen?” Well, for centuries Christians have prayed to the Father, “Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth.” It is His Kingdom—His will—that the nations are raging against.

We can compare these times to watching a hurricane. From one perspective it is a confusing scene of things being ripped apart and swirling around. From another perspective we see the weather forces that are the root cause of all the turmoil. And in the simple prayer Christ taught us, we can maintain a perspective above the storm that is focused on the root cause. We can have a fixed focus on the Father, His will, and His coming Kingdom.

You do not have to look around and say, “What is all this craziness in the world? Can you believe what's happening?” Instead, look at the root cause of the hurricane and recognize that everything happening is very simple to understand. It is exactly what was spoken by John the Baptist and Yeshua (Jesus) two thousand years ago. And it was spoken by all the prophets before that about the son of David coming and setting up His Kingdom. By this focus we can put our stake in the ground and become immovable, which is where we are supposed to be in our faith.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 6:7–13. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:25–28. “He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”

• Matthew 3:1–3. “John the Baptist came, … saying, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

• Matthew 4:12–17. “Jesus began to preach and say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

• Psalm 2:1–12. “As for Me, I have installed My King upon Zion.”

Quotes:

• “This has been going on for a long time. This preaching of and speaking of the Kingdom of God is at the very heart of Christ, the very heart of Judaism, the very heart of our faith.”

• “When nations are addressed, it is not necessarily every individual within that nation. We as believers do have a way of thinking that is a biblical worldview. We have a way of living that is, again, not necessarily in alignment with all of those in the nation surrounding us.”

• “There are going to be many other rulers and dictators and governors, even democracies, that are going to be displaced by this Kingdom that God is bringing forth.”

Takeaways:

1. What are we living through in these days that we call the end-time? We are living through the dispossession of the leadership and rulership of the earth because the Kingdom of God is coming. And do not forget that we as believers have been a great part of praying these days into existence.

2. Do not look around and say, “I don't get it. I'm afraid. I'm confused. I'm concerned about the wars and the rumors of wars. It seems like the world has become very dangerous.” Well, it has. And that is because the Prince of Peace is coming to rule and reign. So, do not let your heart be in fear. Do not let your spirit become passive or melt within you.

3. Continue to pray the prayer that Yeshua gave us from the beginning. Keep your focus on the Father. Keep worshipping Him as the Lord, the Creator of all, and keep speaking into existence, “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

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Web Description: Christ came into this earth as the Word made flesh. We too, having received of His fullness, must grow by grace until we as members of His body are the fullness of Him who fills all things. We too must become in this age the Word made flesh. That is what will have the power and authority that we need to move in the greater works that He has promised.

Show Notes: How amazing it is that the Word of God is so available to us today! We simply have to pick it up and read it. And that is only possible because of the generations of Jewish and Christian scribes who preserved it by faithfully writing it down. When Moses first inscribed that Word in stone, it came with such glory that his face shone, and he had to hide his face with a veil. Today there is still a glory that manifests in the Bible, the written Word. Yet God is looking for something even greater.

He is looking for a greater glory and a greater manifestation of that Word to be more impactful and effective. God is wanting more than His Word engraved on tablets of stone—something outside of us that we know or study. He wants His Word engraved on the tablets of our hearts until we become, as Christ was, the Word made flesh.

That is what He was looking for when He brought Christ to dwell with us. Something had to express His Word to humanity in such a way that the Word could be implanted in us. And the Word implanted in our hearts is to grow until we are the mature expression of that Word as Christ was. And that is what we reach for. We want Him to write His Word on our hearts by the Spirit. We want the veil removed so that we can behold Him as He is and be transformed into His image.

Key Verses:

• John 1:14–18. “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us.”

• John 1:1–5. “He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him.”

• 2 Corinthians 3:1–3. “You are a letter of Christ … on tablets of human hearts.”

• 2 Corinthians 3:4–18. “We all, with unveiled face … are being transformed into the same image.”

• 1 Peter 1:23. “You have been born again … through the living and enduring word of God.”

• Ephesians 4:11–13. “He gave some … to the building up of the body of Christ.”

• John 1:16. “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”

• Ephesians 1:18–23. “The church, which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Quotes:

• “Even what Moses did—as tremendous as it was being the expression to write that Word, to speak that Word, to give that that Word to the children of Israel—the power was not there to release mankind into being likewise this expression of the Word of God.”

• “He is not looking for us to be teachers of the Word, to be scholars of the Word, to be believers in the Word, to be those who are witnesses by testimony of that Word; He's looking for us to be as Christ was.”

• “He was the Word made flesh; and we likewise are to attain to that knowledge of the Son of God, to that mature man, to that measure of stature which belonged to Him. We’re to come into His fullness.”

Takeaways:

1. God created the heavens and the earth by His Word. Then He gave His Word to Moses to speak to the sons of Israel. Since then God’s Word has been recorded and preserved. So we have the Word of God. But something had to express the Word of God to humanity in such a way that the Word could be implanted in us. That is why God gave us His Son, who was the Word made flesh.

2. When we understand this, we understand what Christ really was. And then we can begin to understand what it is God is looking to impart through Christ manifesting as that Word of God. He is looking for the Word implanted in us to grow until each of us likewise becomes the Word made flesh.

3. The reason for the Church and the ministries God gave to the Church is to build up the Body of Christ until we grow into a mature man, to the measure of the stature that belongs to the fullness of Christ.

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Web Description:

We really need to see the works of God in this generation. And those works will only happen through us, the Body of Christ. And so we must have a new revelation of God’s grace. Why? Because the works are God’s and not ours. And they are for God’s glory and not ours. This must be our absolute and permanent conviction: The only reason we can do God’s works at all is by His grace. It is by His grace, which is sufficient for us, that His power will be released.

Show Notes:

We are believing for God’s power to be manifested through the Body of Christ. But we also know that the more God anoints us to perform miracles, signs, and healings, the more difficult it becomes to separate ourselves from the works happening by our hands. We have seen it many times in the history of the Church that people start focusing on and glorifying an individual who is moving in God. When that happens the anointing from God dissipates and eventually goes away.

When people began to attribute to Yeshua (Jesus) the works He was doing, He was very firm to respond, “These works you see me doing are not mine. They are the Father’s works only.” And we need something in our hearts where we are absolutely convinced that whatever is happening through us is God moving to glorify Himself. And it is only by His grace that we are involved in it at all.

According to the Apostle John, “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.” And the more of Christ’s fullness that we receive, the more His grace needs to be multiplied in our lives, until there is no question in our minds that we can do nothing of ourselves; we can only do what Christ has given us to do. By this grace Christ glorified the Father through the greatest works ever seen. By this grace Paul labored mode abundantly than all the apostles. Let us reach into this grace today and see Christ glorified in His Body.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 48:11–12. “For My own sake, I will act.”

• John 5:18–20. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”

• John 5:30. “I can do nothing on My own initiative.”

• John 17:4. “I glorified You on the earth, having accomplished the work which You have given Me to do.”

• John 20:21. “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”

• John 14:12. “He who believes in Me, the works that I do, he will do also; and greater works than these he will do.”

• John 1:15–16. “Of His fullness we have all received, and grace upon grace.”

• Romans 11:6. “If it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works, otherwise grace is no longer grace.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:7–10. “By the grace of God I am what I am.”

• 2 Corinthians 12:7–9. “My grace is sufficient for you.”

• 2 Corinthians 13:14. “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ … be with you all.”

• Acts 4:23–31. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”

• Acts 4:32–33. “And abundant grace was upon them all.”

Quotes:

• “There has to be, according to the Scriptures, a Body of Christ that's moving in the power and the awesome things of God.”

• “Here's a good place to start having the mind of Christ: ‘I can do nothing on my own initiative.’ We are incapable of anything. The works are not our works. It is God working, and Him working through human instruments.”

• “I think the key gift is grace. Because if we're filled with grace—if we have a solid revelation of the grace of God being the only thing in our lives—I think then all of the gifts follow that.”

Takeaways:

1. We are believing for God to move through our intercession. But in everything God is getting ready to do, He is going to glorify Himself. We need to always keep that picture before us. What is God doing? He is glorifying Himself among the nations. He is glorifying Himself before all creation.

2. When the works of God start happening, people start following the person performing those works. It becomes difficult in the eyes of the world to keep the focus on God and not on man. Therefore it must be real to us that it is only by the grace of God that we have any involvement in His works.

3. God is glorified by His works. And just as the Father sent Christ into the world to do His works, Christ has sent us into the world to do even greater works. That is why we must have a new powerful revelation of the grace of God in our lives that is continually expanding as we grow in God.

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Web Description:

Hanukkah is all about the Temple of God—what had happened to

defile it and what they did to cleanse it and rededicate it. We too are a temple of God.

We are to be a holy place in which God can dwell. But He cannot dwell within us if we

are filled with defilement. Let us do today what Hanukkah celebrates. Let us enter into

the promises that God will purify us and dwell in us. Then let us rededicate ourselves to

walk with Him.

Show Notes:

Christians need a greater understanding of Hanukkah. It occurs around

Christmas time, but it existed as a celebration long before Christians conceived of

Christmas. Hanukkah is the Feast of Dedication. And it remembers the time the Temple

was rededicated to God after it had been defiled by Antiochus IV Epiphanes during the

Seleucid dynasty. We as Christians should regard this time of rededication to the pure

worship of God as something very applicable us.

The people at the time of Antiochus IV rose up and fought against the defilement, and

they removed it from their midst. What was at stake was the very presence of God in

the place where He chose to dwell—the Temple. We must take it just as seriously

today. We must fight against everything that is coming into our lives to defile us

because the issue is still the same: Will God have a place to dwell in the earth? We are

to be His dwelling place. We are to be His temple. And He cannot dwell in us if our

temple is defiled.

This Hanukkah should be a tremendous time for all of us. It was a lot of work to remove

all the objects of defilement, clean and prepare the Temple, and rededicate it to the

worship of God. And it may take a lot of work to do that in our own lives. But Hanukkah

means that it can happen. We can separate ourselves from the defilement of this age.

We can repent and He will cleanse us. We can be that place for Him to dwell.

Key Verses:

Read 1 Maccabees 4:36–59.

John 10:22–24.

“The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; … and

Jesus was walking in the temple.”

2 Corinthians 7:1.

“Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and

spirit.”

John 2:14–16. “He made a scourge of cords, and drove them all out.”

2 Corinthians 5:17. “Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”

1 Corinthians 6:19–20. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit.”

1 John 1:9. “He is faithful and righteous to … cleanse us.”

2 Corinthians 6:14–18. “We are the temple of the living God.”

Ephesians 2:18–22. “You also are being built together into a dwelling of God in

the Spirit.”

Quotes:

“As we enter into Hanukkah ourselves and find the importance in our own lives

about it, we realize we begin with an energy, with a drive in our heart that says,

‘We must remove all defilement.’”

“He is holy, and He must dwell within holiness. We cannot tolerate the defilement

and the uncleanness. We must remove all defilement and dedicate ourselves to

being the dwelling place of God on this earth.”

“We must be dedicated to the fact that He must have a holy temple called the

Body of Christ in whom He will dwell, having built us up together into that

dwelling place of God in the Spirit.”

Takeaways:

1. Just as the Temple had been defiled in the days of the Maccabees, today

there are many people who have been defiled so that they no longer qualify

as a place in which God can dwell.

1. Just as the altar and the instruments of worship had to be remade and

rededicated, so this is a time for us to remake our lives in God. It is time for us

to begin again and rededicate ourselves to the Lord.

1. We must put the energy into tearing down and removing that which is defiled.

We must be cleansed of the defilement within ourselves, and we must

rededicate our lives in service to the Lord so that we might be that place in

which He will dwell.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description:

There is a great deal of debate concerning Christmas. Why is it celebrated? When should it be celebrated? Should it be celebrated at all? Rather than attempting to unravel all the doctrinal and scheduling dilemmas surrounding Christmas, this podcast goes into its real purpose. Christmas is all about the love of God manifesting to humanity. The coming of Christ into the world is God manifesting His love in us. There is no more perfect gift that can be given for Christmas.

Show Notes:

What is Christmas all about? First and foremost, the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) is about God sending His Son into the earth. But we get so caught up in what the celebration of Christmas is supposed to be, what church is supposed to be, and what religion is supposed to be that we lose sight of exactly why we are celebrating Yeshua’s being born. Very simply, God was manifesting His love within a human so that we as humans could find a way to open up and receive God’s love in us.

God wants us to know the love He has for each one of us as individuals. It is easy to get lost in the big picture of God doing something for the whole world. But by the gift of His Son, the Father manifested His love in you personally. In Christ, God is driven to get every human to know and feel and recognize and celebrate His love. That is a big part of what He was doing in the birth of Yeshua. If God can get us to see His love for us, then He can make us become love just as He is love. That means love for yourself and love for one another.

If you celebrate Christmas as the time when Yeshua was born, then remember the purpose of that event. As you exchange gifts, remember that the greatest gift was God manifesting His love in a human being. Today we need that more than ever because we are losing the love for one another. We are seeing the opposite of love in the destructive actions toward ourselves and toward one another. There is only one way to stop that trend, and that is by opening our hearts to receive how much God loves us. Loving yourself and loving others will not be a challenge when you really receive the love that God has for you.

Key Verses:

• 1 John 4:9. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son.”

• 1 John 4:7–11. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

• 1 John 4:12–21. “We love, because He first loved us.”

• Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

• Ephesians 3:16–19. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

• John 3:16. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Quotes:

• “If you’re celebrating the birth of Christ, then you’re celebrating the manifestation of God’s love in us.”

• “What is sin? It’s separation from God. But it’s deeper than that. It’s separation from His love for us.”

• “What is eternal life? The love of God is eternal life. Because God is love and that is eternal.”

Takeaways:

1. As we give ourselves to this season, let us remember that it was because of God’s great love that Yeshua was sent to this earth. He came to be the expression of God’s love to each of us individually. God is driven for us to know and experience His love for us. And the greatest celebration of Christmas would be us opening our hearts to know and receive and experience the love of God.

2. Since no man has seen God, and we cannot relate to Him easily, God sent His love packaged in Christ. If we receive Him, we are receiving the love of God so that we may be filled up to all the fullness of God, just as Christ was the fullness of God in man.

3. Read John 17. What made Yeshua and the Father one? The love that the Father had for Him and the love He had for the Father is what welded them into oneness. And because of that love, we have the ability to be one. The one who abides in love abides in God. And Christ and the Father will come and take their abode in us because we finally come into the revelation of God’s love for us.

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Web Description: Did you know that your daily charge of faith and prayer and seeking God is the energy that makes the Body of Christ function? No one in the Body can say, “I’m not important. It doesn’t matter if I’m not supplying what little I have.” It does matter! And the power of oneness will only be released when each of us is manifesting what we are.

Show Notes: As we learned in the previous podcast, the Bible is filled with examples of God moving from a focus on an individual to a focus on a people. The prayer of Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7 shows this process. As an individual anointed by God, Solomon prayed, and God responded to his prayer. It is significant that God’s response was not to tell Solomon what he must do; rather, God told Solomon what the congregation must do.

God was saying, “Just like I answered Solomon's prayer, I will answer the prayer of my people if they humble themselves and seek My face.” In a sense, Solomon’s importance as a singular individual ceased once he finished the Temple. Now God emphasized the importance of all the individuals of Israel. The effectiveness of the prayer depended on how each individual walked with God. The same is true today.

According to God's plan, you are important. Without you, it does not work. Yet it is easy for us to minimize our own worthiness and effectiveness. As Christians we need to get over that mentality. We must recognize the importance of what we bring individually through our faith. Stop saying, “What I have isn’t important, and so it won’t matter if I don’t give it.” Instead, get up daily and say, “I need to bring what I have because the Body of Christ will not function without it.”

Key Verses:

• 2 Chronicles 7:11–14. “If … My people … pray and seek My face, … then I will hear from heaven.”

• Acts 4:24–33. “The congregation of those who believed were of one heart and soul.”

• 1 Corinthians 12:12–16. “The body is not one member, but many.”

Quotes:

• “The body functions only because the cells function. We exist only because of each cell in the body doing its part.”

• “You can say, ‘Well, I don't do that much,’ or ‘I don't have that much.’ It doesn't matter what you have. Without you, the Body of Christ doesn't work.”

• “We need to change an age. We need to see the land delivered. We need to see God come and answer and move. And it requires you.”

Takeaways:

1. According to 2 Chronicles 7, God answered Solomon’s prayer when he fulfilled David’s heart by building the Temple. Then God said He would answer the prayers of His people. But that required that every individual walked with God and served God after the heart of David. That meant it was no longer just Solomon. Each individual was important to the purpose of God and what each individual did mattered.

2. If we want the promises of 2 Chronicles 7, then we must realize that it is no longer what a singular leader does. We are all important as individuals in the Body of Christ. What we do matters, and it does not happen without us.

3. Each cell in a body does not seem to do that much. But the body does not function if each cell is not supplying what it has. You cannot say, “I don’t have very much, so it doesn’t really matter what I do.” The energy you supply is important to the proper functioning of the Body of Christ.

Scripture Readings:

1 Corinthians chapter 12 Ephesians chapter 4

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Web Description: In Christianity there is a strong emphasis on individual ministry. However, the Scriptures show God’s emphasis moving from one individual to many. Then the beginning of the Church showed us the many becoming one. With the Lord’s help, let us follow His leading from our own individuality to real body ministry to the oneness of Christ.

Show Notes: When God met Abraham, the entire focus was on Abraham as an individual fulfilling God’s plan. When his descendants multiplied and moved forward in the plan of God, the focus on an individual transitioned to a focus on the many. Likewise, when Yeshua (Jesus) was on the earth, the focus was on Him as an individual. But when His disciples were baptized in the Holy Spirit, the great anointing that was on Christ was transferred to them, and the plan of God began to happen through the many.

Abraham as an individual did not possess and fill the Promised Land. His descendants did. And Christ as an individual had to ascend to the Father so that the Holy Spirit could fill a people to become the many-membered Body of Christ. God has always transitioned from an individual to a people. Yet it is difficult for us to get out of focusing on the singular individual. Even within the Church today we tend to emphasize individual ministries rather than really getting into body ministry.

Our focus needs to be on body ministry because God wants to lead us into the next step, which is the transition from many individuals into oneness. Christ’s prayer to the Father was that we as His Body would be one. And we have to see that this is the conclusion that everything He did for us is leading to. The revelation of Christ to the world happens as we become one just as the Father and Christ are one. Let this be imparted to our spirits as we pray for His Kingdom today.

Key Verses:

• Genesis 22:17. “I will greatly multiply your seed … as the sand which is on the seashore.”

• Leviticus 23:5–11. “You shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.”

• John 12:24. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

• Leviticus 23:15–17. “You shall bring in from your dwelling places two loaves of bread for a wave offering.”

• Acts 1:1–11. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses.”

• Acts 1:14–15. “A gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together.”

• Acts 2:1–4. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

• Acts 4:23–25. “They lifted their voices to God with one accord.”

• Acts 4:31. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”

• Ephesians 4:13–16. “The head, even Christ, … causes the growth of the body for the building up of itself in love.”

• John 17:11–21. “They may all be one … so that the world may believe that You sent Me.”

Quotes:

• “In the plan of God, we go from one—a focus on one individual or one ministry—and that transitions into many. Then the many must transition back into one.”

• “All that has transpired in the story of God is coming to this conclusion: there must be a body of people. That body must be fitted and held together by that which every joint is supplying.”

• “What's happening to the many? They are becoming one. And that is what the purpose all of this was about in the mind of Christ.”

Takeaways:

1. We emphasize individual achievement and individual ministry. But it is important for us to see that God’s plan has always been to transition from one to many.

2. The Feast of Weeks shows the transition from the singular first fruits of grain to the two loaves of bread made from many grains. Christ was the singular first fruits who pleased God and did His will completely. At Pentecost His followers received power when the Holy Spirit came upon them, signifying the transferring of anointing from Christ as a singular ministry to His many-membered Body.

3. This transition resulted in a great congregation of people who were serving the Lord. Then there was another transition as this congregation was together in one place, in one accord, in one mind and heart. When they prayed together, the power of God was released by that oneness.

4. The next step is that the many become one. The Body of Christ cannot continue on as a multitude of individuals. It must become one for the purpose of God to be finalized.

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Web Description: The 2024 elections were an encouraging sign that Americans are concerned about the moral collapse in this country and want to do something about it. But more than a victory for our faith, it is a window of opportunity that we must not waste. Let us not let up in our faith and intercession for this country until we see it return to its Judeo-Christian roots.

Show Notes: This podcast looks at the results of the 2024 presidential election from a spiritual rather than a political standpoint. Our own political views are certainly important to us, and we all have the right to stand for whatever we want to stand for. However, this election showed more than a political choice. It showed the genuine concern people have for the wrong direction this country is moving and their desire to change that direction.

This election saw a great many people in this country standing up and saying, “We have had enough of rampant crime and destruction of our cities. We have had enough of the immorality being forced on our children in public schools. We have had enough of the antisemitism and anti-Israel policies.” It was an encouraging voice from this nation that we do not want to lose our Judeo-Christian values. It shows that our prayers have been effective up to this point.

It is like God is saying, “Okay, I'm listening. Here's an opportunity. What will you do with it?” And we cannot afford to waste this opportunity. If the intercession of the Body of Christ has brought this victory, then now is not the time to stop. We need an intensified level of intercession to shape what this victory will mean to our society in the coming days. We need more than political reforms. We need a change that reaches down to the very roots of this country. We need the depth of repentance that brings a nature change. Let us use this window of opportunity and pray like we never have until we see this nation become what God wants it to be.

Key Verses:

• 2 Kings 13:14–20. “The man of God was angry … ‘Now you shall strike Aram only three times.’”

• 2 Chronicles7:11–16. “My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to the prayer offered in this place.”

Quotes:

• “God is in the business of judging immoral nations. And I feel like we have become that and are sliding very quickly into a worse state day by day.”

• “Things are not going to change unless we change them through faith and prayer. And they're not going to change unless God is the force behind the change that happens.”

• “Let’s get out of the caves. Let’s for sure have our own faith and prayer and intercession coming to another level. But let's open our mouths and do more than just vote privately in our houses.”

Takeaways:

1. The 2024 presidential election was an announcement that Americans want a new direction for this country. The voice of the majority against the lawlessness, immorality, and antisemitism was an encouraging sign that this nation does not want to lose its Judeo-Christian values.

2. In 2 Kings we read that Elisha directed Joash the king of Israel to shoot an arrow, meaning he would have victory over Aram. But when Joash beat the arrows only three times, Elisha told him he will win only three battles and not put an end to Aram.

3. We can look at this election with a sense of victory. But it really is a window of opportunity that we do not want to waste. We can be like Joash and accept a limited victory. Or we can keep beating our arrows by our intercession until we see the end of the wickedness that is destroying this county.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: Thanksgiving is a wonderful time set aside for giving thanks to the Lord. But the scriptural example of thanksgiving is not something that is done only on specific days. It is a continual practice of giving thanks and praise to the Lord every day. The pattern in our lives should not be thanking the Lord whenever we feel He has blessed us. We should have an attitude, a mindset, and an intentional emotion of gratitude for everything God is and does. Let this Thanksgiving be the beginning of a new lifestyle of overflowing gratitude before the Lord.

Show Notes: In the transition from the Tabernacle to the Temple, David commanded the Levites to thank and praise the Lord every morning and evening. This concept of giving continual thanks and praise to the Lord goes deeper than our concept of giving thanks. When someone gives us something, we say, “Thank you.” And so our definition of thanksgiving still has this idea of thanking God after He blesses us. A better word for the scriptural concept of continual thanks to God is gratitude.

The Scriptures show us that we can develop a mindset, an attitude, and especially an emotion of gratitude before the Lord. Even when we face difficulties and negative situations, we can still have this emotion of gratitude because it is not dependent on our circumstances. We do not have to deny what may be happening to us, but we can continually focus on the Lord and develop within ourselves the sense of wonder and gratitude for all that God is and all that He does.

Therefore, let us celebrate Thanksgiving this year with gratitude. Let it be an expression of our continual thanks and praise to the Lord and not isolated to one specific gift or answer to prayer that He has given us. Let our gratitude become something that we develop within the depths of our being as part of our relationship with God, whereby we say daily, “Lord, we are not thankful for one or two things that You did for us. We are overflowing with gratitude for all things that You are to us and have provided for us.”

Key Verses:

• 1 Chronicles 23:30. “They are to stand every morning to thank and to praise the LORD, and likewise at evening.”

• Psalm 92:1–5. “It is good to give thanks to the LORD and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High.”

• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

• Colossians 2:6–7. “As you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, … overflowing with gratitude.”

Quotes:

• “We don't just want to say ‘thank you’ for something. We want to develop in our hearts an attitude of gratitude.”

• “When we talk about gratitude, it's not just an action; it's an emotion that is being expressed from within the depth of our being.”

• “There is an unending list and an unending focus of what we should be giving praise and thanks to the Lord for.”

Takeaways:

1. David introduced a new responsibility and ministry for the Levites. They were to stand every morning and evening to thank and praise the Lord. It is also important for us to find a new expression in our giving of thanks and worship to the Lord.

2. It is good to set aside one day at Thanksgiving to express our thanks to the Lord. But we need more than just a practice of thanking the Lord on one day and afterwards reverting to a life of ungratefulness. We need the Levitical pattern of thanking and praising the Lord continually.

3. Giving thanks when we are blessed is still a limited emotion in response to our circumstances. We need to develop an intentional emotion of gratitude that is a continual expression of praise and thanks to the Lord.

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Web Description: When we pray for Israel, what are we praying for? Are we praying for God to bless Israel in the future? No. God’s Word over Israel exists now, and we are praying for that Word to be fulfilled now. The fact that all the nations are focused on Israel today means that they are focused on God and on His ability to perform what He said. Therefore, the focus of our prayer is for God’s Word, His power, and His glory to be revealed in Israel to all the nations.

Show Notes: We need effective intercession in this time. And one of the greatest examples of effective intercession is the prayer of Moses. When God said, “I am going to kill these children of Israel and make a new nation out of you,” Moses answered, “Israel is Your nation now by Your Word.” Moses reminded God that His Word was already completed, and he changed God’s mind at that moment. It did not happen in the future through Moses or in a future Israel.

This is important for our prayer because we as Christians relate too much to the Word of God as being in the future. We are always waiting for it, hoping for it, or believing for it, instead of recognizing that if God spoke it, it already exists. When we pray for Israel today, we need to be like Moses and say, “All these Words that God will restore, forgive, cleanse, and prosper Israel exist now, and we are not putting them off into the future.”

Moses made the issue about God’s Word and His glory. If God did not fulfill His Word over Israel, the nations would not scoff at Israel. Instead, they would scoff at God and say that He could not do what He said He would do. Right now, the focus of all the nations is on Israel. And there is no issue except God being glorified until everyone will see and hear that God bared His mighty arm, manifested His power, and fulfilled His Word over His people. Lord, glorify Yourself before the nations now.

Key Verses:

• Jeremiah 31:31–34. “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it.”

• Genesis 1:3. “Then God said, ‘Let there be light’; and there was light.”

• Isaiah 55:11. “My word … will not return to Me empty.”

• 1 Peter 1:19–20. “He was foreknown before the foundation of the world, but has appeared in these last times.”

• Exodus 32:9–14. “So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

• Numbers 14:11–21. “But now, I pray, let the power of the Lord be great, just as You have declared.”

• Ezekiel 36:22–28. “I will vindicate the holiness of My great name.”

• Romans 10:6–8. “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART.”

• Ezekiel 38:21–23. “I will magnify Myself, sanctify Myself, and make Myself known.”

• Deuteronomy 9:28–29. “The land from which You brought us may say, ‘Because the LORD was not able.’”

Quotes:

• “As long as you're willing to put it into the future, God is willing for it to happen in the future.”

• “What does Israel mean? Israel means you, the world, the nations will behold God moving in a people. And just as He is moving for Israel, He can move for you. And He will move for you.”

• “Christians have been trying to get the gospel to the whole world for two thousand years now; and they're still working at it. But I'll tell you, it can happen in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, if you see God move on Israel.”

Takeaways:

1. God created the world by saying, “Let there be.” And when we look at the prophecies over Israel, we are looking at the same power of God to create. As the Sabbath tells us, everything God created is finished. And all the prophecies over Israel are finished now; they are not waiting for the future.

2. We should pray like Moses who refused to let God move the fulfillment to the future by destroying the Israelites and making a new nation out of Moses. We move the future into the present with our prayers.

3. We should pray like Moses who told the Lord, “If you kill these people, the nations will hear of it and say, ‘You could not do what You promised by oath.’” The issue is not the events that are happening or the people involved. It is about what God has said and His glorification to the nations.

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Web Description: Often after deliverances or breakthroughs or answers to prayer, we experience spiritual warfare that seems diametrically opposed to what we are believing for. But we need to see that God is doing something greater than what we assume. We must be careful that our prayers and speaking the Word of God are not limited by our own minds because God is able to do abundantly beyond our limited ability to imagine.

Show Notes: The Lord sent Moses to tell the children of Israel that the God of their fathers would deliver them from Egypt. But as the deliverance unfolded, the people became very upset with Moses because their lives got worse every time he spoke. It seemed that God was doing the opposite of what Moses said He would do. Moses himself had to hold in his mind what God told him at the beginning: “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied.”

God was looking for something beyond Egypt. He was going to deliver His people out of Egypt, but He was also going to multiply His signs and wonders and magnify Himself to pharaoh and the people of Egypt. After their deliverance at Passover, it seemed to Israel that God was trying to destroy them by Pharaoh’s army at the Red Sea. But God was doing far more in His deliverance than the people understood. He was completely destroying Pharaoh’s army and bringing down the power of Egypt.

We need to hold this in our minds as we voice or re-speak the promises of God in the Scriptures. The spiritual warfare will come to make us feel like the exact opposite of what God promised is happening. So it is important that we set aside our expectations for a situation and reach into what God is wanting. What is the spiritual warfare really about? It is telling us that God’s deliverance will be greater than anything we can believe for or even imagine.

Key Verses:

• Exodus 11:9–10. “Pharaoh will not listen to you, so that My wonders will be multiplied.”

• 1 Corinthians 13:12. “Now I know in part.”

• Isaiah 55:8–9. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.”

• Exodus 12:42. “It is a night to be observed … by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.”

• Exodus 14:10–13. “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the LORD.”

• Ephesians 3:20. “To Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.”

Quotes:

• “Satan can't take anything from you. He can only try to talk you into letting go of what you've received.”

• “It's always good to remember what God is looking for because we tend to get so consumed in what we're looking for.”

• “It’s never about what the enemy is doing. It's always about what God is doing in fulfilling His purpose.”

• “We can't even bring ourselves to imagine how great is the release that God is going to bring. How great is His Kingdom. How great and abundant are His promises and His deliverances and His answers to our prayer.”

Takeaways:

1. After God promised to deliver Israel at Passover, the people became discouraged and angry because the judgments on Pharaoh made their lives worse. But God had told Moses that Pharaoh would not listen so that His wonders would be magnified.

2. At Tabernacles we experience great victories and receive directions for new hope and promises from the Lord. Then after such times of great victory, we often find that we are plunged into spiritual warfare that makes it appear as though our deliverance failed.

3. What is really happening may lie in the fact that this new spiritual battle is being brought by the Lord, who is in the process of giving us a greater victory and deliverance than what we had originally been promised or could even imagine.

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Web Description: In the quantum realm all things exist as possibilities until we observe them. But it must be understood that we are observing what exists; we are not creating something new. In God all things are possible to the one who believes. But that only works when it is a belief in what God has created. The Sabbath means that God rested because He completed His creation. And we enter His rest when we stop trying to create our own thing and become instruments to manifest what He has created.

Show Notes: Quantum physics describes a realm where all possibilities exist. It is the act of observation that takes something out of the quantum realm of possibility and manifests it in the realm we relate to. This quantum principle applies to the Sabbath. God rested on the Sabbath because all His works were completed. That means everything already exists in the realm of possibility. Therefore, our faith is not to create something new. It is to become aware of what God has already created and thus manifest what He has made available.

When you enter God's rest, you are resting from your works, from your striving, and from your seeking to accomplish something. There is nothing for you to accomplish since God has already accomplished everything. If you are stressed as a believer, it is because you have not entered His rest. You are still trying to work too hard to accomplish all the things you feel are from God. If they are from God, then He has already created them, and you need to manifest what He has created, not work harder yourself. If our awareness can lock onto what He has created, finalized, and completed, then we will become the manifestation of His works.

The book of Hebrews warns us not to be like those who failed to enter His rest because of disobedience. What was their disobedience? Even after they had witnessed God’s signs and wonders, they still did not believe He was God. They did not believe He was capable; they did not believe He was going to follow through on His promise. What then is the obedience God is looking for? It is believing in who He is as God and that what He has created is finished and fully available to us.

Key Verses:

• Hebrews 4:9–11. “The one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works, as God did from His.”

• Genesis 1:27–31. “God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good.”

• Genesis 2:1–4. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work.”

• Hebrews 4:1–11. “Let us be diligent to enter that rest.”

• Mark 9:23. “All things are possible to him who believes.”

• Matthew 7:7. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”

• Psalm 95:6–11. “They tried Me, though they had seen My work.”

• Psalm 78:10–33. “In their heart they put God to the test.”

• Matthew 4:5–7. “YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.”

Quotes:

• “Something that we're still looking for is this idea of entering into His rest. So you must see that there is an experience available to us that God is wanting us to have that has not been accomplished yet.”

• “All things are possible to him who believes. If we pray, then we can pray and believe for these things to manifest. You knock and you keep on knocking. You ask and you keep on asking because they are there. You're not trying to invent them. You're not trying to recreate them. You are simply believing in what is.”

• “We've seen His salvation in our own lives. We've read the Bible stories. We've witnessed at times, many of us with our own eyes, the moving of God in the earth—healings and wonders. We cannot doubt. We cannot come back and say, ‘Oh, now we just need You to do one more miracle for us.’”

Takeaways:

1. Many Christians think that the Sabbath is strictly Jewish. But God sanctified the Sabbath day after He finished His creation, long before the commandment to observe the Sabbath. This means that the Sabbath was set apart for all mankind.

2. People are still trying to understand the quantum realm. But simply, it is a creation of God. It is the mind of God. It is the realm where all things are possible. And the Sabbath rest means that we simply activate what is possible in the mind of God rather than striving in ourselves to accomplish something.

3. The generation that God delivered from Egypt failed to enter His rest because of their unbelief. We do not want to follow their example. We had better know that He is God and that nothing is impossible for Him and that all He has created is available for us to possess.

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Web Description: In this day it is essential that we know and believe the love God has for us, as we read in 1 John 4:16. Otherwise, we become overwhelmed by the increasing lawlessness in the world, and we find our love growing cold. The Kingdom is God’s love. And we can only minister His love to others when we know His love for us personally.

Show Notes: Yeshua (Jesus) said, “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.” Already we see this happening with people as they react to the increasing lawlessness around them. The fact is that we are affected by the spirit realm. And as we watch all the negativity happening in the world, we have to take care that we are not drawn into the same spirit.

Yeshua directly tied the increase in lawlessness to people losing their love. Satan knows this and brings all the lawlessness and wickedness because they generate a force in direct opposition to what Christ is trying to impart to us, which is His mind that has the capacity to know the love of God. As His Son, Yeshua knew the love the Father had for Him, and He came to impart the knowledge of that love to us as individuals.

We need to come into the knowledge of the Father’s love for us because Christ is sending us into the world for the same purpose that He came. It is not to do signs and wonders. It is not to perform healings. It is not to speak living words. It is to impart the love of the Father into the lives of people. But you cannot impart what you do not have. The greatest preparation you can do right now to carry out the will of God in the earth is to become aware of His love for you personally.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 24:12–14. “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”

• 1 John 4:7–13. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

• 1 John 4:14–16. “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us.”

• Ephesians 3:16–19. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

• Romans 12:2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

• John 15:9–13. “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love.”

• John 17:24–26. “The love with which You loved Me may be in them, and I in them.”

Quotes:

• “Everything that's going to happen in the bringing forth of the Kingdom between now and the manifestation of it in the earth is born out of love.”

• “The spirits that are taking over this age right now have a purpose. And that is to block the knowledge of love. It is to remove love from the hearts of humanity.”

• “If we can come to know this love that God has for us individually, we can be filled up to the fullness of Him, to the fullness of that love.”

Takeaways:

1. When we see everything happening in the earth, our immediate tendency is to be caught up in the negative. But it is not for us to relate to what is going on from a negative perspective. It is simply a matter of shifting our focus and awareness to God’s presence.

2. Yeshua had the awareness of God's love for Him personally, and He functioned out of the knowledge and the understanding of that love. And Christ came to bring the knowledge of that love to us as individuals.

3. Why is satan bringing all this lawlessness and wickedness and this increase of evil? Because if he does that, then the love of people grows cold. The wickedness is in direct opposition to what Christ is trying to impart to us, which is His mind that has the capacity to know the love of God.

4. As humans we struggle with knowing the love that God has for us. That is why we need this impartation of the mind of Christ that is beyond human knowledge or human ability to understand.

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Web Description: Let us come to Christ and learn of Him. Let us take on His yoke. Let us change our whole approach to walking with Him. Instead of stressing and struggling and carrying a burden He has not put on us, let us enter His rest. His works are already finished. And it is not our job to do new works or to pray for new things. We are simply to be the expression of what He has already created.

Show Notes: After years of serving the Lord, do you feel weary? Do you feel a heaviness? Are you weighed down by all the burdens you carry? That means you need to try a different approach. Yeshua (Jesus) said, “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” It comes back to the fact that we need to enter His rest. We need to remember the Sabbath.

When you remember the Sabbath, what are you remembering? You are remembering that God has already completed everything He has promised. So if you are stressed out from serving the Lord, consider that your stress is from working so hard to bring the manifestation of His promises that you are doing your own works—not the works He has completed.

Yeshua said that He could do nothing of Himself. He only did the works of His Father. And He told us to learn of Him. When we do that, we will find rest for our souls. We need to come to Christ and learn of Him because He knew how to be in God’s rest. And we need to know how to do that. Let us change our approach. Instead of being those who are struggling and straining to do the will of God, let us be those who are bringing into this moment all that God has already provided.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 11:27–30. “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”

• Jeremiah 31:25. “For I satisfy the weary ones and refresh everyone who languishes.”

• Hebrews 4:1–3. “We who have believed enter that rest.”

• Psalm 95:9–11. “Your fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they had seen My work.”

• Matthew 4:5–7. “It is written, ‘YOU SHALL NOT PUT THE LORD YOUR GOD TO THE TEST.’”

• Hebrews 4:9–10. “The one who has entered His rest has himself also rested from his works.”

• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”

Quotes:

• “When you look at the world, it's languishing right now. We should be the ones who are imparting the refreshing of God's presence. But we can't impart what we don't have.”

• “God gets angry when you test Him. Why? Because we should already know He's God. We should already absolutely know beyond a shadow of a doubt who He is and what He is capable of in our lives.”

• “What do we remember on the Sabbath? We remember that everything we need, everything we're believing for is already done.”

Takeaways:

1. We are not supposed to be weary, under a heavy burden, and stressed out in our walk with God. Yeshua is saying, “All you who feel this way, come to Me, and learn a new way. Learn a different approach. Learn of Me because My yoke is easy.”

2. This is necessary for us because the longer we walk with God, the more our tendency is to say, “I believe. But can God really do what I believe?” We have seen enough in our years of walking with God that our faith in Him should be absolute. And we must not put God to the test like those who failed in the wilderness by challenging His ability.

3. It is all about the Sabbath. The Sabbath was established because God finished His work. And we must come to the realization that everything God is going to bring is already done. We should not be praying for God to do things in the future. We should be manifesting His finished work.

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Web Description: What is the Feast of Tabernacles about? It is about remembering God’s power to deliver, to protect, to provide, and to lead His people. As we celebrate Tabernacles this year, let us be grateful for everything God has done for us and worship Him, acknowledging His power to do all that He has promised for Israel and for us.

Show Notes: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is a time when Jewish families live and take their meals together in a sukkah or a booth, just as their ancestors did in the wilderness. It is a time to remember the miraculous works of God that delivered them from Egypt and sustained them in the wilderness. They are to teach this history to their children so that no generation will ever forget the miraculous provision of God's power. They know they must never forget that God is able to move today as He moved in the past.

As Christians we should not regard Tabernacles as just a Jewish holiday. We must be those who remember God’s power in our lives because we are in serious trouble when we forget. And so we should celebrate Sukkot this year with Israel and the Jewish people, not religiously but in a true heart of remembrance. We should be rehearsing the stories about the forty years in the wilderness and recognize that the power of God for Israel then is the same power He has now.

Today we need this provision of God moving in our midst. We must remember all that He has done. We must remember that we are sustained by His power alone and not by anything we do from ourselves. So let us study the Scriptures and teach our children the history of Israel and how God moves by His mighty power to take care of those He loves and covenants with. We keep these facts alive in our hearts and know that God can do the same thing in our lives today, right now.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 23:39. “Celebrate the feast of the LORD … with a rest on the first day and a rest on the eighth day.”

• Leviticus 23:43. “So that your generations may know.”

• Deuteronomy 5:13–15. “The seventh day is a sabbath of the LORD your God; … You shall remember.”

• Deuteronomy 31:8–12. “At the end of every seven years … at the Feast of Booths, … you shall read this law.”

• Deuteronomy 8:1–5. “You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you.”

• Deuteronomy 8:11–18. “Beware that you do not forget the LORD your God.”

• Psalm 78:4–18. “They forgot His deeds and His miracles that He had shown them.”

• Psalm 78:35. “And they remembered that God was their rock, and the Most High God their Redeemer.”

Quotes:

• “We're in a time when many things are happening around us. Many things are happening in Israel. And it's necessary that we don't forget that He is a God of miracles and that He provides for His people.”

• “We will probably need again to experience this type of miraculous provision from God during our lifetime.”

• “There's got to be a humility that comes in our hearts to remember all that God has done, all that He provided because we may find ourselves living in what seems like a new time of wilderness. And in that wilderness, we must remember He is able miraculously to provide for us.”

Takeaways:

1. The purpose of Tabernacles is that we come before the Lord to remember His mighty works, to remember His power, and to remember His ability to sustain us, to carry us, to protect us, and to shepherd us.

2. Let us not be like those who forget the works of God and therefore fail to keep His commandments. Let us not be like those who forget His deeds, who forget His miracles, and who forget all that He has spoken and sworn to Israel and to us.

3. We live in an age when the world is headed for disaster. And the greatest source of it is that we have forgotten the miraculous deeds of the God of heaven, and we have not honored Him or worshipped Him or given Him the credit for all that He has done.

For Further Study:

Deuteronomy 8

Psalms 78

Nehemiah 9 and 10

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Web Description: We are coming to the Day of Atonement, which has great significance for us as Christians. It is about the forgiveness of our sins, something we understand well. But it is also about something we need a greater revelation and appropriation of, and that is our purification and the removal of our sins. Let this be our experience as we celebrate the Day of Atonement this year.

Show Notes: We read in Leviticus 16 that the Day of Atonement is about cleansing the people of their sins. It was a solemn assembly, a time for the people to humble themselves and repent of their sins. Then the first goat was sacrificed as a sin offering, speaking to the forgiveness of their sins. But there was also a second sacrifice. The goat of removal was sent into the wilderness to take away all the iniquity of the people.

Most Christians relate to Christ who is our Atonement in the context of the forgiveness of sins. But the Day of Atonement is about being cleansed of our sins. And cleansing is more than external washing. It is about our purification. The prophecy of the Messiah in Malachi tells us that He comes for the very purpose of purification. Yeshua (Jesus) HaMashiach, the Messiah, came for our purification, which along with forgiveness is the cleansing and removal of our sins.

Therefore, we absolutely should celebrate the Day of Atonement this year. And as we celebrate it, we should remember that our atonement is not only about the forgiveness of sin. It is also about the purification of the believer, enabling us to truly enter the presence of the Father. With great thankfulness we reach in during this time to humble ourselves before Him and appropriate all that He has provided for us on this Day of Atonement.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 16:29–31. “It is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you.”

• Leviticus 16:18–22. “The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land.”

• Malachi 3:1–3. “He will purify the sons of Levi.”

• Hebrews 10:1–2. “The worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have had consciousness of sins.”

• Psalm 103:12. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

• Hebrews 10:14–23. “Let us draw near with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean.”

Quotes:

• “The Lord through the blood of Christ forgives us. But again, there's something more that the Day of Atonement is pointing to that we want to receive. And that is this removing out of us the iniquity and the sin so that we don't continue going through the same process of sinning.”

• “We as believers are not just to live lives having been forgiven of our sin. We are to live lives that are more represented by this event in the Day of Atonement that we are forgiven but also cleansed and purified.”

• “When God forgives, He does forget. He remembers our sin no more. But He goes beyond that because in the purification He is then able to put His law upon our heart and upon our mind.”

Takeaways:

1. On the Day of Atonement two sacrifices were made. The first sacrifice was to forgive the sins of the people. The second sacrifice was to remove the sins of the people. We understand the forgiveness of our sins in Christ but not so much the removal of our sins.

2. Atonement is for our cleansing. And that is not just cleansing as we relate to cleansing ourselves by taking a bath or cleaning something by wiping the surface of it. It is talking about purification.

3. Malachi tells us that when Messiah comes, He is like a refiner's fire and fullers' soap and will sit as a smelter. The sacrifice of Christ forgives our sins but also puts us through the process of purification that is like the refining and purifying of gold or silver.

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Web Description: As we come to the Day of Trumpets this year, let us cry out to the Lord in our intercession. But let us follow the pattern in His Word. When we shout and lift our voice like a trumpet, let it be done according to the Lord’s guidelines and instructions so that we may get the answers we need.

Show Notes: This month we will celebrate a new year—not the New Year of the Gregorian calendar, but the biblical new year of Rosh Hashanah, which begins on Yom T’ruah, the Day of Trumpets. The Hebrew word t’ruah means “the blowing of trumpets,” which we read in the Scriptures was used to call the congregation together for a meeting or for going to war. T’ruah can also mean “shouting or expressing joy.” These expressions are something we can apply today.

At Jericho the Lord gave the children of Israel specific instructions that involved t’ruah. They had to spend seven days blowing trumpets and shouting until the walls of Jericho fell. The Lord had promised them the land and told them that He had given Jericho into their hands. Yet to take what belonged to them, they had to follow exactly the pattern of the Lord. In a real sense our intercession is like t’ruah, and if we want to be as effective as the Israelites were at Jericho, then we too need to be obedient to the Lord’s pattern.

That is why our intercession should be guided biblically by what the Lord has said—by what He has promised and by what He has given us through prophecy. How do we pray for Israel and the Jewish people today when the entire world seems determined to destroy them? We read the prophecies in the Scriptures of everything God has said He will do for His people in these end days. Then we cry out to the Lord and shout t’ruah and believe for the walls that stand against His Word to come down.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 23:23–24. “You shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets.”

• Numbers 29:1. “It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets.”

• Exodus 12:1–2. “This month shall be the beginning of months for you.”

• Joshua 6:1–5. “When you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout.”

• Joshua 6:15–20. “The people shouted, and priests blew the trumpets; … and they took the city.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:12–16. “I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

• Daniel 9:2–22. “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action!”

• Matthew 6:5–15. “When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”

Quotes:

• “God doesn't just tell us to pray for something. He doesn't just promise us things. He really directs us in how we should go about receiving those promised events that the Lord is giving.”

• “While we're in these days of great intercession that the Lord is bringing to us, we must recognize that we have real instructions about how we're to approach the Lord and how we're to pray.”

• “If we follow the pattern of how He taught us to pray, how He gave us instruction in His Word to pray and approach Him, then it will happen. Keep walking around the walls until you're instructed to shout in the day of victory, and those walls will come down and it will be given into your hands.”

Takeaways:

1. The concept of a new year in the Scriptures is not the same as our concept according to the Gregorian calendar. Rosh Hashanah, which begins in the seventh month, is the beginning of the ordinary calendar year. The ecclesiastical year begins in the month of Nisan. There are also new years for the tithing of animals and trees.

2. The word t’ruah in Yom T’ruah, the Day of Trumpets, has various meanings such as “the sound of a trumpet, clamor or loud noise, a battle cry or alarm, rejoicing, and shouting.”

3. The Lord gave specific instructions to the children of Israel for the use of t’ruah in the taking of Jericho. Israel had to follow exactly the pattern of the Lord to take the land He had promised them. The pattern and instructions for our intercession are also laid out for us in the Scriptures.

4. We pray according to the scriptural promises and prophecies, according to the repentance and returning to the Lord that God revealed to Solomon, and according to the instructions that we have from Yeshua (Jesus).

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Web Description: God rested from His works. That means they are completed. And that is what the Sabbath is all about. This Sabbath rest of God is expressed in the coming feasts of the fall season. They are windows of opportunity to enter God’s rest by rejoicing in, proclaiming, and appropriating God’s completed provisions.

Show Notes: On the seventh day God rested from all His works that He had completed. Then He set apart the seventh day as the Sabbath, a day when we recognize that God has completed all His works for us. They exist now, and therefore we look forward to appropriating everything that He has made available to us. And the upcoming fall feasts are a perfect time for us to do that. We should approach these times with a drive in our hearts to appropriate God’s provisions and see them manifested.

The fall feasts begin with Yom Truah, the Day of Trumpets. According to the meaning of truah, Yom Truah is a day of blowing the trumpet, shouting, or crying aloud before the Lord. This reminds us that while we have many promises in the Word of God, we should be shouting and proclaiming them. We find this command throughout the Scriptures that we are to shout, rejoice, and worship God in what He has spoken. His great provisions are available for us now, and we proclaim them into the earth.

The Sabbath rest of God means that we are not waiting for the promises of the feasts to be fulfilled in the future. We rejoice in our total salvation on the Day of Atonement and in God’s presence with us at Tabernacles. These are already created in God, finished, and available to us. These days of the biblical feasts are more than just observances. They are a time to reach in for that which has been completed for us by God. We celebrate these feasts by entering God’s rest, by worshipping Him, by rejoicing in what He has provided, and by appropriating His provisions into our experience.

Key Verses:

• Genesis 2:2–3. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because in it He rested from all His work.”

• Psalm 98:4–9. “Shout joyfully to the LORD, all the earth.”

• Isaiah 54:1–3. “Break forth into joyful shouting and cry aloud.”

• Jeremiah 31:7–9. “Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and shout.”

• Jeremiah 29:11–14. “You will call upon Me and come and pray to Me, and I will listen to you.”

• Deuteronomy 4:29–35. “From there you will seek the LORD your God, and you will find Him.”

• Ezekiel 36:24–28. “I will cleanse you from all your filthiness.”

• Zechariah 2:10–13. “Sing for joy and be glad.”

• Leviticus 26:11–12. “I will make My dwelling among you.”

• Exodus 29:45–46. “I will dwell among the sons of Israel.”

• Psalm 118:21–29. “Let us rejoice and be glad.”

• John 7:37–38. “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink.”

Quotes:

• “I don't want to wait for some day in the future. If I wait too long, I'm not going to be here to enjoy it. I want the Kingdom to come in my time. I want these things to manifest because Christ said, ‘It is finished.’”

• “We want to appropriate the open door that exists right now for God's people to return to the land in a time of great blessing, upon a straight path which the Lord will make so that there is no stumbling.”

• “We don't wait for Him to fulfill the promises and then feel thankful, then feel glad, then feel rejoicing. We feel it now. It is completed now. It exists now. It's available now.”

Takeaways:

1. In looking at the Sabbath rest of God, we realize that God has finished the provisions that He made for us. The things that He has made available for us are ours to appropriate. They exist now.

2. The feasts are windows of time that God has made available. So we should approach these celebrations with a determination to find out what God has provided in them and be driven to receive all that He has for us.

3. The feasts are times to shout and declare God’s promises, to worship Him and rejoice in their completion and our appropriation of them today.

4. We live in a day when the nations are coming against Israel and the Jewish people. But that is the opposite of what God has provided. God has provided for many nations to join themselves to the Lord and to Israel and become His people. Then He will dwell in our midst. Let us celebrate this as a reality now at this time of Tabernacles.

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Web Description: There are many ways that we could pray about the times in which we live, but we will be the most effective when we pray in all humility like Daniel prayed when he asked God to restore Israel according to His Word to Jeremiah. Today we pray that God fulfills Christ’s Word that the days of tribulation are cut short for the sake of God’s elect, and that Israel and in fact all mankind are saved from the destruction that satan has planned.

Show Notes: There is power in prayer and power in the words that we speak. That is why we should not be making up prayers that do not align with the will of God. We should be studied and careful in the way that we pray, just as Daniel was when he prayed for Israel’s release from captivity in Babylon. He saw in the Scriptures that he was living in the time when God promised the return of Israel to their land. Therefore, he humbly entreated God according to the Word that God had spoken.

Daniel’s prayer was very effective. And if we want to be effective, then we should follow Daniel’s example and pray according to the Word that God has spoken about our day. And in this day as we see the signs of tribulation all around us, the Word of God is clear. Concerning these days of tribulation, Yeshua (Jesus) said that God will cut them short for the sake of the elect. The Jewish people are God’s elect, and for their sake He will stop the course of the Tribulation to prevent the destruction of all flesh.

This is how we pray. We declare this Word that the Lord will cut short the time, that the events planned by satan through Iran and its proxies are stopped dead in their tracks, and that the planned destruction of Israel and the Jewish people does not happen. We also pray according to this Word that satan’s planned destruction of humanity does not happen. Like Daniel, we humble ourselves, confess our sins before Him, and pray to the Lord that His Word is fulfilled in its time.

Key Verses:

• Daniel 9:2–3. “I, Daniel, observed in the books .... So I gave my attention to the Lord God to seek Him.”

• Matthew 24:21–22. “For the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

• Genesis 12:3. “In you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

• Mark 13:19–20. “For the sake of the elect, whom He chose, He shortened the days.”

• Daniel 9:4–19. “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action! For Your own sake, O my God.”

• 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:12–16. “My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”

Quotes:

• “We need to pray. But I think it's so necessary that we pray according to the Scriptures.”

• “These days, the days of the Tribulation, according to Yeshua are going to be cut short for the sake of Israel, for the sake of God's chosen people.”

• “We look at the Temple and say it applies to us. Its desolation is our desolation. Its destruction is our destruction. And the cause of that destruction is our own actions, our own failure to walk in His righteousness and His ways to keep His Word.”

Takeaways:

1. When talking about Israel and the days of tribulation, Yeshua said, “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.” In other words, if the time is not cut short, there will not be a Jewish race and there will not be a land of Israel. But for the sake of the Jewish people and the land of Israel, those days will be cut short.

2. Just like Daniel saw the event of Israel’s restoration in the Scriptures and said, “This is for my day; this is what I'm praying over,” we can look at the Words of Christ and say, “This is for our day, and we will pray that the Lord will cut short these days of tribulation and save mankind.”

3. The tribulation comes about because of the wickedness that is even in our own hearts. Therefore, we put ourselves before God in an attitude of humility, believing that our brokenness and repentance combined with prophesying the Word of Christ will have the power to change the world according to that Word.

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Web Description:

Baptism is a sacrament. It is also a work we do as an expression of our faith. But even more than that, it should be our immersion into everything we believe about Christ, making His suffering, death, burial, resurrection, and ascension the real experiences of our walk with God.

Show Notes:

The Scriptures tell us that if we suffer with Christ, we are glorified with Him. That is not something you simply take by faith and say, “I believe He suffered for me, and so I believe I will share His glory.” No, you suffer with Him. That means the cross is more than something you believe happened in the past; it is something you experience now. It is something that moves from the realm of faith into the reality of experience. This is a truth that baptism teaches us.

James wrote that faith without works is dead, and baptism is a work you do to express your faith. It must be more than symbolic, however, because our new way of life is to be immersed in Christ after we first believe in Him. That means we can be immersed in all that Christ experienced for us. We can live through His shame and suffering, His death and burial, and His resurrection and time on earth in a glorified body. We can experience His ascension to the right hand of the Father and be seated with Him as He begins to rule and reign.

That is why we take up our cross daily. Our salvation can grow daily and become greater and greater as we experience deeper and deeper experiences in the Holy Spirit, in the Word, and in our waiting and meditation before God. He has given us these events so that through our faith we can experience them. We reach into God for the reality of the provision and the promise of baptism that He has given us.

Key Verses:

• Romans 8:17. “We suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”

• Matthew 27:51–53. “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints … were raised.”

• James 2:14–26. “Faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself.”

• Romans 6:3–14. “If we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him.”

• Colossians 3:1–8. “You have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”

• Galatians 6:14. “The cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

• Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

Quotes:

• “The resurrection of Yeshua was so powerful that those who had gone before Him in death were literally pulled out of death into resurrection bodies also, came out of their graves, and began walking the streets of Jerusalem.”

• “I think we have to be careful that we're not just being dunked under water and getting wet. We are to come up out of that water with experiences that are life changing for us.”

• “Your faith should lead you into a life of prayer. It should lead you into a life with the Word. And as you immerse yourself into the Word, you're going to find that you not only want to believe that Word. You find yourself needing to experience what that Word is saying.”

Takeaways:

1. Our faith is given to lead us into the experiences that we are to have. We can have experiences with the things of God that are even historical, bringing them up to the present moment, making them alive in our lives, and making them part of our walk with God.

2. The events of Christ’s death, burial, resurrection, and ascension are more than historical events that we believe in. These are events that we should be experiencing through baptism as the next step in our relationship with God and the building of our faith.

3. We need to see baptism as something beyond a secondary confession of faith. It should be our immersion into the fullness of Christ’s experiences as our new life.

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Web Description: As Christians we are believers. And there are many blessings to believing. But believing in something must ultimately lead to experiencing what we believe. If we are to take up our cross daily and follow Him, then by the Holy Spirit there must be a way to make all that Christ experienced through the cross our daily experience.

Show Notes: According to James, faith without works is dead. If you say, “I believe in riding bicycles,” do you stand back and never get on a bicycle? No, you jump on a bike and start riding it. This applies to your walk with God. If you want to walk with God, then you cannot stand back and say, “I believe in walking with God,” and yet never do anything to walk with Him. Walking with God is a daily experience of your belief in God.

Yeshua (Jesus) said that to be His follower you must take up your cross daily. That means the cross of Christ must be a daily experience in your life and not just a belief about the cross. That is the purpose of baptism. It is to take all you believe and manifest it in your life as an experience. It is not just a sacrament that we do religiously. If we are truly baptized into Christ, then His sufferings and death to the flesh, His life in resurrection, and His ascension to the Father and reigning with Him can all be experiential realities for us.

Do you find yourself struggling to believe God or struggling to be faithful to your beliefs? It is not that you need to try harder to believe. You need to experience the faith that you already have. In your daily prayer life and waiting on the Lord, ask the Holy Spirit to lead you into deeper spiritual experiences and make what you believe the reality in your life.

Key Verses:

• Luke 9:22–23. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must … take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

• Matthew 10:38. “He who does not take his cross and follow after Me is not worthy of Me.”

• Romans 6:3–13. “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

• James 2:26. “Faith without works is dead.”

Quotes:

• “Faith is something that enables us to move on into experience. Faith leads to works, and without works faith is dead.”

• “We have to be able to say, ‘I know the cross because I have visited the cross. I've experienced what Christ experienced on that cross with Him. I watched Him as though I was standing at the foot of the cross, embracing it as He was suffering upon it.’”

• “I think we should take up the reality of His death, His burial, and His resurrection so that they are experiences to us that we have connected with, even if it's by a deeper and deeper revelation through the Holy Spirit.”

Takeaways:

1. We must understand that we walk by the Spirit, and we have the Holy Spirit through whom the Lord has granted for us to be able to experience our faith.

2. Faith without works is dead. The real purpose of faith is for us to progress from faith into the works or the experiences that we are to have because of our faith.

3. By the Holy Spirit let us be immersed experientially in everything Christ experienced in His suffering, death, resurrection, and ascension. This is what baptism is all about.

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Web Description: Our relationship with God begins at the cross of Christ. But it is also where it continues. We never leave the need for the cross in our lives. The cross is the only means we have for winning the victory over our sin nature. It must be put to death and the only place that happens is at the cross. As disciples of Christ we take up our cross daily for that purpose.

Show Notes: As Christians we generally see the cross as a one-time event that we associate with our initial salvation experience. Yet once we have already believed and confessed that Yeshua (Jesus) died on the cross for our sins, we often find ourselves struggling with condemnation over the fact that we still have sin in our lives. The feeling we have, and even the teaching we get in churches, is that once we are saved, we are not supposed to have problems with sin anymore.

To deal with this we need to relate to the cross differently. Christ bore our sins in His body one time on the cross so that we might die to sin, but our own death to sin and the removal of our sin nature is not instantaneous at the moment we first accept Christ. To be a disciple of the Lord, we must daily take up His cross as our own and follow on with Him. There must be an ongoing relationship with the cross in our lives.

The process of the Christian life includes a daily visit and encounter with the cross. We need to go back daily to the reality of the cross, to that place where sin is defeated and put to death. Just as Christ put sin to death in His body by hanging on the cross, we go back to that cross and make sure that sin is put to death in our body. As believers today we can take faith to mature and grow in this ability to be His disciples. Learn how to take up your cross and follow Him. Let it be a daily experience with His cross.

Key Verses:

• Luke 9:23. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must … take up his cross daily and follow Me.”

• Luke 14:27. “Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple.”

• 1 Peter 2:24. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross.”

• Romans 6:1–18. “Consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.”

• Romans 8:1. “There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

• Philippians 3:8–12. “I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus.”

• Colossians 3:3–10 (HCSV). “Put to death what belongs to your worldly nature.”

Quotes:

• “I know we desire to grow in God and to mature in the things of the Lord, but many times maturity begins with the elementary expressions of what we know and what we must do.”

• “This war can only be won by the cross. There was no defeat of sin and unrighteousness other than through Yeshua. And if you're going to master sin, you're going to do it at that cross, and you're going to do it daily.”

• “What is the obedience? It's to go to the cross and to immerse ourselves once again in the blood of Yeshua as the victory over sin and death and commit ourselves to this way of life that He has opened up for us, which is to be instruments of righteousness.”

Takeaways:

1. We recognize that the cross is not something that we just experience on the day of our salvation and becoming a Christian. It is something that we experience daily to see the defeat of everything of sin.

2. We put to death the old nature and the unrighteousness that still battles against us. We bring it to an end. And we have the ability and the tool to do that in the cross. There is no condemnation because we find ourselves in these struggles. We simply recognize we have been provided with the answer.

3. The cross is daily, continuously the victory of Christ given and provided by God over the things of sin and the flesh. And we as believers today will mature and grow into an ability to be His disciples because we understand how to daily take up our cross and follow Him.

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Web Description: Through the cross of Christ, we have been raised up with Him. Therefore when you face difficulties or spiritual warfare, do not anxiously look around you. Instead look up. Rise up and be with Him where He is. Stay with Him. Focus on Him. Then you will be positioned to loose God’s will and His Kingdom in the earth.

Show Notes: We read God’s Word in Isaiah: “Do not anxiously look about you.” This is God speaking to Israel, and it applies directly to what Israel is experiencing today. We are witnesses to all the warfare and anti-Semitism that Israel and the Jewish people are suffering. Yet the Word of the Lord to them is not to look at those things but to trust Him. As Christians we need to apply this same Word to ourselves.

As we walk as believers these days, we can see many signs of the end times. They are called days of tribulation, and we know that very desperate things can take place. Yet again the encouragement from Yeshua (Jesus) is that we do not focus on the things that are happening around us. Instead, we stand up straight, lift up our heads, and look up because our redemption draws nigh. This focus is very important for us as we strive to experience the cross in our daily lives.

Taking up our cross daily to follow Him does not mean that we spend all day on the cross. It is through the cross that we are raised up with Christ and daily we keep seeking the things above where He is. In our waiting on the Lord and in our meditation and intercession, we are to be where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. If we are too locked into the world around us and our human needs and human problems, our intercession will be hindered. Our focus is on what Christ and the Father are doing so that what we see in the Kingdom of heaven we can loose here on earth.

Key Verses:

• Colossians 3:1–3. “If you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above.”

• Isaiah 41:8–14. “Do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.”

• Luke 21:25–28. “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads.”

• John 14:3. “Where I am, there you may be also.”

Quotes:

• “The cross is not a stopping place. It really is a point of beginning.”

• “The resurrection is as important as the cross. If Christ only experienced the cross and there was no resurrection, then we don't have what we're looking for.”

• “If you've been raised up with Christ, then don't be moved from that place with Christ. Keep seeking the things above where He is. We're supposed to be there. We're supposed to live there. We're supposed to focus there.”

Takeaways:

1. We do not just go to the cross and die and then that is the end. The cross is the beginning of being raised up with Christ and moving in His presence. And if we are raised up with Him, we keep seeking the things above where He is.

2. We are to set our minds on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. Our focus is not to be on the world around us and what is transpiring there. We are to keep our focus on the Lord.

3. We are to rise up, which is more than standing up straight or looking up. We are to rise into God’s presence and be with Him just as Christ said we could.

4. This is what makes our intercession effective. Yeshua taught us to pray, “Your Kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” And if we are beholding His will in heaven, then we are able to loose it on the earth.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: We need to do more than relate to the cross of Christ merely as a distant historical event. Yes, we believe it happened two thousand years ago and because it happened our sins are forgiven. But we need to embrace Him on the cross today because it works today. In your relationship with Christ, you never outgrow the cross. You never put it aside or make it secondary. It must be your daily experience.

Show Notes: The cross is where our relationship with Christ begins. Yet it is easy for us to leave behind our salvation experience with Christ on the cross and move onto other things. We know that He is not only our Savior through the cross, but He is also the Lord, and so we are to know Him as Lord. We are to grow in the things of God and that means moving on. But we never stop walking on the foundation. And the cross of Christ is the foundation of our life and our relationship with God.

You can embrace Christ on the cross at any given moment. Yeshua (Jesus) said that we must take up our cross daily if we are to follow Him. And we interpret our cross as being our personal grief and sorrows and suffering. But Christ bore our grief and sorrows on the cross. He bore our suffering that was caused by our sins separating us from God. The cross that we carry daily is the cross of Christ. And we need to start our day in a connection with all He did on that cross for us and because of us.

If you are struggling every day with everything the world is imposing on you, the answer is the cross of Christ. It is only at His cross where you are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to you. We never leave the necessity of the cross of Christ. We must never get so far away from it in our lives that we become enemies of the cross, as Paul warned. Instead we strive to know the Christ whose death on the cross is our daily experience of being conformed to His death and to His resurrection.

Key Verses:

• Luke 23:34. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

• Luke 9:23. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must … take up his cross daily.”

• Isaiah 53:4–5. “Our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.”

• Galatians 6:14. “In the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ … the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.”

• Hebrews 7:25. “He always lives to make intercession for them.”

• Matthew 27:46. “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

• 1 Corinthians 2:2. “I determined to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.”

• 1 John 1:7–9. “If we walk in the Light, … the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”

• Romans 10:6–10. “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART.”

• Hebrews 11:1. “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

• Philippians 3:7–14. “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ.”

• Philippians 3:15–18. “Many walk, of whom I often told you, … that they are enemies of the cross of Christ.”

Quotes:

• “The cross will always be with us. Just as we understand that Christ Himself will bear in His body the marks of the cross, the cross itself is existent in the moment. It's existent now in this moment.”

• “If I confess my sin in this moment, then the cross is alive in this moment, and He forgives me in this moment and cleanses me in this moment from all sin and unrighteousness.”

• “There's no knowing of Christ without knowing Him in that moment—in those moments on the cross where He is dying for me and because of me, and He's dying for you and because of you, and He's dying for the whole world, who hopefully at some point will have this revelation and come to the cross.”

Takeaways:

1. The cross of Christ is more than a historical event that we believe happened. The event of Christ’s death and what He accomplished by that on the cross is right now in the moment. And we need to experience that moment daily.

2. If that seems too mystical, then understand that everything about belief as a Christian is mystical. Everything surrounding our faith in God is mystical because God dwells outside of this realm of time-space that we are bound by.

3. There is one cross: the cross of Christ. You do not carry a different cross. Everything that you can interpret as your cross—your personal sufferings and sorrows—He bore for you and because of you on His cross. That is the cross that you take up daily to follow Him.

4. We never outgrow the need of the cross as we progress into the Kingdom of God. Our maturity means knowing Christ and that includes knowing Him on His cross.

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Web Description: The fast of Tisha B'Av this year will be another time of fasting and mourning for the Jewish people. But also this year there are many who cry out as the comforters of God’s people—who speak kindly to Jerusalem, and who voice in faith the Words of the Lord that prophesy the rebuilding of the city and the reestablishment of the fortunes of Jacob.

Show Notes: The fast of Tisha B'Av is observed on the ninth day of the month of Av, which in 2024 begins at sundown on August 12 and ends at sundown on August 13. Tisha B’Av is a fast of mourning for the tragic events in Jewish history occurring on the ninth of Av, but primarily for the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem. The prophecies of Yeshua (Jesus) concerning the destruction of the Second Temple, which are recorded in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, are applicable to this fast.

As Christians we need to see how specific these prophecies are to Jerusalem and to Israel. And it is important that we observe this time with the Jewish people because we have a purpose to fulfill. That purpose, as we read in Isaiah 40, is to comfort God’s people. With that purpose in mind, how do we pray for Israel and the Jewish people at this time when they are suffering so much from war and the threat of war? We pray for God’s promises of restoration to be fulfilled.

God’s promise through Zechariah is that the times of fasting will be replaced by feasts of joy and that the nations will not return to Jerusalem with sword and spear but will go up to the house of the Lord. Also Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Amos prophesied that the fortunes of Israel and Judah will be restored. We step up to be those who speak kindly to Jerusalem, who comfort God’s people, who declare that God will restore their fortunes today.

Key Verses:

• Luke 21:5–9. “See to it that you are not misled.”

• Matthew 24:1–6. “See to it that no one misleads you.”

• Luke 21:24–28. “Straighten up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.”

• Isaiah 40:1–2. “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God. ‘Speak kindly to Jerusalem.’”

• Zechariah 8:18–23. “The fast … will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts.”

• Isaiah 41:8–14. “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not anxiously look about you, for I am your God.”

• Isaiah 61:1–4. “The LORD has anointed me … to comfort all who mourn.”

• Ezekiel 39:25–29. “I will restore the fortunes of Jacob and have mercy on the whole house of Israel.”

• Amos 9:13–15. “I will restore the captivity of My people Israel.”

• Jeremiah 30:15–20. “I will restore the fortunes of the tents of Jacob.”

• Jeremiah 33:7–9. “I will restore the fortunes of Judah and the fortunes of Israel.”

Quotes:

• “When He says, ‘You're going to hear of wars and rumors of wars,’ that's significant at the moment because Israel right now is in a war and there are also rumors of another war to take place.”

• “When these things begin, then you're to take a certain position, which is that you're to stand up. You're to lift up your head because your redemption draws near.”

• “It's so easy to look around in this time of mourning to anxiously wonder what will happen. What will tomorrow bring? What are the days ahead going to be like? But He says, ‘Do not anxiously look about you for I am your God.’”

Takeaways:

1. Tisha B’Av is a time of fasting and mourning for the destruction of the Temple. And this is specifically what Yeshua’s prophecies of the end-time are about, as we read in Matthew 24 and Luke 21. We generally apply His prophecies to events taking place in the world. But He was speaking of events that will happen in Jerusalem, on the Temple Mount, and in Israel.

2. When we see these things happening, as we are seeing them in Israel today, we are not to be focused on those events. We are to look up. We are to reach into the heavenly places to be focused on God and on Christ and on what they are doing to bring forth the Kingdom.

3. The command in Isaiah 40 is directed to Gentiles. We are to comfort God’s people and speak kindly to Jerusalem. In our prayer and intercession, we need to declare God’s promises of restoration to Judah and Israel.

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Web Description: I do not want the crucifixion of Christ to be a distant impersonal event for which I have no responsibility. It must be real to me that Christ died for me and because of me. I believe that we as Christians must keep that uppermost in our minds. I want us to give ourselves to this reality that every day we take up our cross, which is the cross of Christ that He went through for us, and then begin to walk with Him on that basis.

Show Notes: As Christians we all understand that Christ died for our sins, and we can apply that universally to all mankind. Christ died for the whole world to bring salvation to everyone. Yet salvation only works for everyone when it works for each person individually. As an individual you have to realize that Christ did not just die for everyone; He died for you personally. And more than dying for your sins, He died because of your sins.

When Yeshua appeared to him, Paul realized that he personally was sinning directly against Christ. Paul was fully aware that Christ died because of his sin. That was Paul’s salvation experience, and that was the revelation Paul lived with every day after that experience. As with Paul, not only does our salvation begin at this revelation, but it must continue throughout our walk with God. What does it mean that you take up your cross daily and follow Him? It means that Christ wants His cross and His suffering for your sin to be extremely personal to you on a daily basis.

It all starts with the reality of the cross and without the reality of the cross, there is no relationship with God. And so, to begin our day in a relationship with Him, we must go to this point of beginning: “He died for me. He died because of me.” No matter how many years you walk with God, no matter how much you grow and mature in the things of God, you must always go back to this point and keep it alive for yourself every day.

Key Verses:

• Acts 2:36. “God has made Him both Lord and Christ—this Jesus whom you crucified.”

• Acts 4:10. “Jesus Christ … whom you crucified … by this name this man stands here before you in good health.”

• Romans 5:8. “While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”

• Ephesians 5:2. “Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God.”

• Romans 4:25. “He … was delivered over because of our transgressions.”

• Romans 8:32. “He … did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us.”

• Galatians 2:20. “I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.”

• 1 Peter 2:24. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross.”

• Isaiah 53:4–6. “Our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried.”

• Luke 9:23–24. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily.”

Quotes:

• “God delivered Christ to the cross as a sacrifice for me, and it was done out of necessity because of my sin. Christ had to die, or I had to die eternal death and damnation without His sacrifice.”

• “Paul's life was being lived against Christ. He was persecuting Christ, not Christians. What he was doing was against Christ. And what Christ was coming to do was to be personally a Savior to him.”

• “He died for me. He died because of me. And I need to go once again to that place of the cross and make that the reality and the most important event in my life, not to mention in my day.”

Takeaways:

1. Accusing the Jews of crucifying Christ is at the root of anti-Semitism. Not only is it anti-Semitism on the deepest levels, but it separates us from the fundamental truth that the crucifixion of Christ was for our personal sins and because of our personal sins.

2. Let us not limit the purpose of the cross or generalize the concept of our salvation, and thereby take away from the extremely personal nature of the cross and what we must have as a very personal experience for salvation to be effective in our daily lives.

3. You cannot separate your cross from the cross of Christ. Christ Himself certainly suffered on that cross. But He was also bearing your sorrow, your grief, and your separation from God because of your sin and disobedience.

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Web Description: Yeshua (Jesus) the Messiah is called the Prince of Peace because He reconciles us to the Father. Through Him we have shalom, which is expressed in the wholeness and completeness of mankind on the Sabbath when God rested after His works were completed. This is the peace that is ours in the fruit of the Spirit. And we reach in for the Holy Spirit to pour out this expression of God’s emotion within us.

Show Notes: When we talk about emotions, we understand that there are human emotions and divine emotions. This includes the emotion of peace. And if we want to understand the emotion of peace only in human terms, we could find many ways that peace is defined and applied in the world today. However, the peace that we have in the fruit of the Spirit is not human peace but the peace that we receive from God. And we need to understand God’s definition of peace.

In Hebrew, the word for peace is shalom. And shalom means “to be whole, to be entire, to be complete, to be in safety, and to be in health.” These concepts are distinctly tied to the meaning of the Sabbath. God rested on the Sabbath from all His works because His works were completed. They were perfect. They were whole and entire. Therefore to have the shalom that is the fruit of the Spirit is to have the wholeness and completeness that enables us to enter into the rest or Sabbath of God.

Clearly there is no rest in the world because people are always striving to achieve or enforce peace according to their own definitions. But this striving is directly related to our lack of wholeness and completeness, which only comes through our reconciliation with the Father. And this reconciliation is only brought about by Messiah, who is called the Prince of Peace because He restores our oneness with God, allowing each of us individually to become whole and complete. Only when we individually have shalom in God will we be able to bring peace into the world.

Key Verses:

• Galatians 5:22–23. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace.”

• Isaiah 9:6. “A son will be given to us; … His name will be called … Prince of Peace.”

• 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24. “May the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely.”

• 2 Corinthians 13:11–12. “Live in peace; and the God of love and peace will be with you.”

• Hebrews 13:20–21. “The God of peace … equip you in every good thing.”

• Philippians 4:8–9. “Practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.”

• 2 Thessalonians 3:16. “May the Lord of peace Himself continually grant you peace.”

Quotes:

• “When we look at human striving that exists around us in the world today, we understand that all striving exists because of our lack of shalom, our lack of completeness. And that of course comes because of our separation from God.”

• “From now on when we greet one another with the word shalom, we realize that we are releasing the ability to be made whole and complete by the peace that God has made available through His great love for us.”

• “The prime objective of God's love is to bring about His peace with each of us personally and individually in order that peace can then encompass the globe.”

Takeaways:

1. When God completed His creation, which included mankind, He sanctified it, by which man was purified. The Sabbath rest that followed was by the fact that everything was whole and complete, which is the definition of shalom or peace.

2. This reality was lost by Adam in Eden, and it has left all of mankind trying to figure out what peace is, while striving to accomplish or gain what will make them feel whole and complete.

3. God has made provision for our peace through His love manifested in Yeshua, who is the physical manifestation of the Day of Atonement. He is the Messiah, the great Prince of Peace, who has come to establish on this earth God's Kingdom of peace.

4. Peace is only possible when we individually are at peace, having been restored to wholeness through reconciliation with the Father by the Prince of Peace.

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Web Description: We always point to the Day of Pentecost as the moment when the disciples changed. But I do not think we completely realize what changed them. It was the fruit of the Holy Spirit being poured into them. Instead of the negative emotions that had defined their lives, now they were filled with love, joy, peace, patience, faithfulness, and all of God’s emotions that came into them. Lord, we pray for that to be our experience today.

Show Notes: When we think of being filled with the Holy Spirit, we do not usually think of being filled with emotions or functioning by emotions. Yet when we have the fruit of the Spirit, we have emotions like love, joy, and peace. God is love, and love is a key emotion that we are to be filled with as believers. We do not want to be filled only with human love. We want to be filled up to the fullness of the love that comes from God.

That is why the Holy Spirit is such an important answer for our personal deliverance. We may be living in devastation because of emotions connected to a past event. We may have feelings, which are rooted in emotions that prevent us from having the peace that we need. How can we have the perfect love that casts out fear as the Scriptures promise? If we can be filled with the Holy Spirit, then we can be filled with God’s emotions to cast out the negative emotions that are restricting us.

As Christians we need to realize the significance of our emotions and accept the Holy Spirit’s role in the emotional realm. Emotions connected to painful experiences of the past keep us living in the past. We want to be able to apply the fruit of the Spirit—God’s emotions, God’s feelings, and God’s thinking about a past experience. If we love God and are called according to His purpose, then He can change our negative picture of the past into a positive picture of His purpose in our lives. Lord, help us to walk in this.

Key Verses:

• 1 Thessalonians 5:24. “Faithful is He who calls you, and He also will bring it to pass.”

• Galatians 5:22–23. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace ….”

• John 21:16. “‘Simon, … do you love Me?’ He said to Him, ‘Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.’”

• 1 John 4:16. “God is love.”

• 1 John 4:18. “Perfect love casts out fear.”

• Romans 8:28. “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.”

• Revelation 7:17. “God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

• 2 Peter 1:3–4. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

Quotes:

• “Whatever it seems like is going on in your life, I just know there's something bigger going on, which is God fulfilling His purposes in creating you.”

• “The most emotional experience of our existence would be to stand there on that Day of Pentecost experiencing that outpouring and the mighty rushing wind and all that it meant.”

• “I think that our deliverance begins when we are able to have the love cast out the fear, have these emotions of the Holy Spirit cast out the negative emotions.”

Takeaways:

1. It is more significant than we realize, and more significant than the way we have tried to function in the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit is poured out into us to bring us emotions. That is what the fruit of the Spirit produces within us—emotions like love, joy, and peace.

2. The Christian Church began with Judaism in the Eastern world. As the Church became Westernized it lost not only its Jewish roots but also the meditative practices of the East. But we need to meditate on the Lord and appropriate what He has provided.

3. We need God’s emotions and His feelings to replace our negative feelings that are rooted in the past.

4. God lives in eternity and His perspective is born out of eternity. Therefore, He can turn anything into your good because He is seeing not just the end of your life as a human; He is seeing you through an eternal relationship with Himself.

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Web Description: Christ appeared the first time to bring salvation by being the sacrifice for sin. Then He appeared a second time to men such as Peter and Paul, not for sin but to deliver them from their reliance on themselves into a reliance wholly on God. We also need to reach into the promise that He will appear a second time to those who eagerly await Him. Lord, appear to us! Make us those whose works are one hundred percent from the throne of God and not mixed with human pride.

Show Notes: We read in Hebrews 9:28 that Christ “will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin.” We know that Christ in His first appearing came for salvation with reference to sin. He came at Passover to be the sacrifice for sin, for the forgiveness of our sins. We also know that Yeshua (Jesus) appeared again to His disciples during the fifty days between Passover and Pentecost. This was a time when the Lord was delivering them from the limitations of their flesh.

Peter for example knew what it was to believe in Yeshua as the Christ, the Messiah. But something more had to happen for Peter. He had to be delivered from his own pride. So Christ appeared to Peter a second time for something beyond the revelation that He was the Messiah, beyond the salvation of forgiving sins. He appeared to Peter to break his spirit and bring a level of humility, without which Peter could never have moved in the apostleship that he was to move in.

Like Peter, if we are to walk in the works that God has prepared beforehand for us to walk in, we will have to know that there is nothing of ourselves that comes from ourselves, that everything is from Him and by Him. Yes, we believe in the salvation for forgiveness of sins that Christ accomplished at His first appearing. But we need Him to appear to us a second time, as we eagerly await Him, for a salvation from the mixture of flesh and Spirit in our lives that hinders us from walking in the ministry that the world needs in this hour.

Key Verses:

• Hebrews 9:28. “Christ … will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin.”

• Luke 22:32–34. “Peter, the rooster will not crow today until you have denied three times.”

• Matthew 16:16–17. “Flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:8. “If they had understood it they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:1–5. “He appeared to Cephas [Peter], then to the twelve.”

• Luke 22:61–62. “Peter … went out and wept bitterly.”

• Ephesians 2:4–9. “It is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.”

• Ephesians 2:10. “We are … created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand.”

• Philippians 3:4–12. “Not having a righteousness of my own … but … the righteousness which comes from God.”

Quotes:

• “God is not out of control. God is in absolute control. He knows what He's doing. Listen, He's had this plan for a long time. He's had this plan for so long, He wrote it down in a Book several thousand years ago.”

• “We've had a walk by faith. We've had a walk by revelation. But I think that right now what we have to experience is a walk by grace.”

• “What we've walked in up to this point has been wonderful, especially if you ask us. It's been wonderful because we see the partial as the perfect. And now He's coming to say, “No, it was partial. It was mixed. But now I'm removing the mixture.” What will come will be perfect. And it's going to be a walk of pure grace.”

Takeaways:

1. During the fifty days between Passover and Pentecost, Christ appeared to Peter to deliver him from the problems of his flesh that would hinder his apostleship. We also have the promise that Christ will appear to us a second time, not to forgive our sins again, but for a salvation from the flesh that is still hindering us.

2. If satan knew the truth, he would not have crucified Christ. But he is incapable of knowing the truth, and he was so convinced of his own lie and his control of others to carry out his plan that he felt very free to express it. We find this same unrestrained manifestation of satan’s lie today.

3. People can have the same conviction concerning a lie. We have seen Christians with this problem. Are they saved? Yes. Are their sins forgiven? Yes. But are they also arrogant, boastful, and prideful? Yes. We must all admit that we have had this problem at some point in our Christian walk.

4. The Kingdom of God will not be a mixture of God’s works with human fleshly works. Just as Christ appeared to Peter and Paul to deliver them from the proudful reliance on their own flesh, we should have an anticipation that Christ will appear to us to remove that from us once and for all.

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Web Description: This is a second podcast dealing with supersessionism and replacement theology, which are foundational to the problem of anti-Semitism within the Church. We have already seen through the Holocaust what anti-Semitism can lead to, and we agree with the cry, “Never again!” It is imperative therefore that we remove these doctrines of anti-Semitism from the Church so that the Church can be a force to remove anti-Semitism from the world.

Show Notes: Replacement theology and supersessionism twist the writings of Paul to suggest that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s people. Yet Paul wrote in Romans 11:1, “God has not rejected His people, has He?” Then he made that as emphatic as possible by stating, “May it never be!” That means it will never happen. God will never reject the Jewish people. Yet Christians continue to misinterpret verses from Paul’s Epistles to support their supersessionist doctrines.

A belief in these doctrines requires picking a few verses and twisting them in such a way that makes them appear as meaning something they do not. But a comprehensive reading of Paul’s Epistles clearly shows that the new covenant enables Gentiles to be included; it does not exclude the Jews. Through Christ who is the natural seed of Abraham through Israel, Gentiles who are not the natural seed can participate with the descendants of Israel in God’s promises to Abraham.

As Gentile Christians we are wild branches grafted into the same tree in which the Jews are natural branches. And Paul warns us not to be arrogant toward the natural branches because if God can cut them off, He can do the same to us. Yet replacement theology and supersessionism express arrogance toward the Jews. This is deception that we need to be delivered from because it works against the truth that God’s unilateral covenant with Abraham, expressed through Christ and ratified by Him on the cross, brings Christians and Jews to a point of oneness in our faith in God and in His Word.

Key Verses:

• Jeremiah 31:31–33. “I will put My law within them and on their heart.”

• Jeremiah 31:34. “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

• Jeremiah 31:35–37. “If this fixed order departs, … then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel.”

• Galatians 3:16. “The promises were spoken to Abraham and to his seed.”

• Galatians 3:17–21. “If a law … was able to impart life, then righteousness would indeed have been based on law.”

• Galatians 3:22–23. “The Scripture has shut up everyone under sin.”

• Galatians 3:26–29. “If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s descendants [seed].”

• Romans 4:1–7. “ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS CREDITED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.”

• Romans 4:9–12. “He received the sign of circumcision … so that he might be the father of all who believe.”

• Romans 11:1. “God has not rejected His people.”

• Romans 11:13–16. “If the root is holy, the branches are too.”

• Romans 11:17–22. “Do not be arrogant; … it is not you who supports the root, but the root supports you.”

• Romans 11:25–27. “THIS IS MY COVENANT WITH THEM, WHEN I TAKE AWAY THEIR SINS.”

• Romans 11:30–33. “God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all.”

Quotes:

• “The Jewish people down through the generations have been a blessing to every nation, being those who agreed to the teaching, to the Law and what it stands for—what it means—bringing a moral code into existence to humanity and culture.”

• “The new covenant was not canceling out the covenant with Abraham. In fact, it was being fulfilled by Christ who was promised to Abraham in that unilateral covenant.”

• “I pray that people take this and study it; study these Scriptures carefully until they are delivered from every root of anti-Semitism, every root of supersessionism, every root of replacement theology.”

Takeaways:

1. The Gentile world has full access to share in the new covenant by having the faith of Abraham. There is no need and no possibility, in truth, to eliminate the Jewish people from this covenant.

2. Yeshua (Jesus) was not the single seed of Abraham who replaced all the Jews by enacting the new covenant. But rather, Yeshua coming forth from the seed of Abraham—the lineage of the Jewish people—instituted the new covenant as the fulfillment of the promises that were given to Abraham that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed.

3. The Scriptures have shut up everyone, Jews and Gentiles, under sin so that the righteousness that is imparted by faith in accordance with grace might be guaranteed to all the descendants—that is the seed of Abraham—both Jews and Gentiles.

4. Supersessionism and replacement theology are an expression of arrogance toward God’s people that Paul warned against in Romans 11.

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Web Description: This podcast deals with supersessionism and replacement theology, two names for a very dangerous belief system that is foundational to the problem of anti-Semitism within the Church. But what we see from both the Old Testament and New Testament is that the premise of this belief system is an impossibility. So I pray with all my heart that we can see removed from the Church, once and for all, these concepts and these doctrines, and we can begin to walk in oneness with our Jewish brothers and sisters.

Show Notes: At the root of supersessionism and replacement theology is the concept that the Jews by disobedience broke their covenant with God, and Christians are the recipients of the new covenant. This is an assumption that the Scriptures do not support. It is true that God promised a new covenant to replace a broken covenant and that Yeshua (Jesus) instituted the new covenant at the Last Supper. These truths, however, do not suggest or imply that Christians have replaced the Jews as God’s people.

God sought to replace the bilateral covenant at Sinai with a new unilateral covenant. The covenant at Sinai did not work because at Sinai the children of Israel agreed to follow the Law, something they were unable to do. It is also something that Christians and all humans with human flesh are unable to do. The new covenant that God promised to Judah and Israel is a unilateral covenant, meaning that God does everything. He puts His law in their minds and hearts, fulfilling the requirement of the Law and reaffirming that they are His people.

Therefore, God did not replace the Law, and He did not replace His choosing of Israel. He only replaced the methodology of the covenant itself and how it was formed. God took it from a bilateral covenant into a unilateral covenant. This new covenant now opens the door for everyone to fulfill the Law by faith through grace. The fact that Gentiles can now be included by this grace is wonderful. To twist some Scriptures and say that the failure of a few Jews in the past caused God to reject all Jews and replace them with Gentile Christians is anti-Semitism. It is a form of racism that must be removed from our hearts and from the teachings of the Church.

Key Verses:

• Hebrews 7:26–27. “A high priest … who does not need daily, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices.”

• Hebrews 8:1–2. “We have such a high priest … a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle.”

• Hebrews 8:6–7. “He is also the mediator of a better covenant.”

• Hebrews 8:8–13. “Finding fault with them, He says … ‘I WILL EFFECT A NEW COVENANT.’”

• Exodus 24:3. “The people answered … ‘All the words which the LORD has spoken we will do!’”

• Luke 22:19–20. “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.”

• 1 Corinthians 11:23–26. “This cup is the new covenant in My blood.”

• Jeremiah 31:29–30. “Everyone will die for his own iniquity.”

• Revelation 20:12. “The dead were judged … according to their deeds.”

• Jeremiah 31:31–33. “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it.”

• Jeremiah 31:34. “I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.”

• Jeremiah 31:35–37. “If this fixed order departs … then I will also cast off all the offspring of Israel.”

Quotes:

• “He is not rejecting the people nor is He rejecting the Law. He is recognizing that there is a failure in that covenant, and therefore God is fixing it.”

• “That is the significance of a unilateral covenant—God is going to do it. He is going to do that which man cannot do, Jew or Gentile.”

• “Whoever sins, the Lord will deal with that person individually. So that must be clear, and it flies in the face of the whole idea of replacement theology.”

Takeaways:

1. Replacement theology contends that the Jews broke their covenant with God because they failed to fulfill the Law, and therefore God rejected them, replacing them with Christians who have the new covenant. The Scriptures prove that this is false teaching.

2. When Christ instituted the new covenant, He did not do away with the Law or the promises that were given to the people of Israel. The new covenant comes to create in them a heart whereby they can walk in the Law. So clearly, God did not reject the Law nor did He reject His people.

3. God has not said to the Jewish people, “Your ancestors blew it, and therefore all Jews since then have been rejected.” It does not work that way. The Lord deals with each person individually according to his or her deeds.

4. God spoke that just as it is impossible to make day or night cease, it is impossible for Israel to cease from being a nation before Him forever. Very simply, God will never reject His people, which erases the very foundation of replacement theology.

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Web Description: When we see the atmosphere of anti-Semitism on college campuses and elsewhere, we can react by injecting our own anger and judgment into the atmosphere. But the people engaging in these acts of wickedness are being controlled by the spirit realm. And a spiritual problem requires a spiritual answer. God’s answer to the problem is to send His love. And we must be moving in God’s love if we expect to have any impact on what is happening.

Show Notes: Today we are immersed in a spirit world that is more and more filled with hate and contention. These spiritual forces are motivating people to commit the acts of anti-Semitism that we see abounding right now. And it is a mistake to assume that we cannot be influenced by these spirits ourselves. We need to search our hearts and eliminate any openness to anti-Semitism or hatred that could be used by satan.

We need to be clean ourselves if we are going to be effective in changing the hearts and minds of people who are engaging in the wickedness that we see happening. That includes our reactions because we can react to what we see by demanding God’s judgment on people. But God is far more aware of the wickedness of mankind than we are. And His response to that wickedness was to send His love.

God so loved the world that He sent His Son, not to condemn the world but so the world would be saved through Him. Christ comes as our deliverer to release us from the spirits of the world that are controlling us. And if we are going to be effective in releasing people from the spirits that are controlling them, we must have the one force that is powerful enough to do that, which is the power of God’s love. We immerse ourselves in His love and believe for the love of God in Christ to be expressed through us. That is what the world needs right now.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but … against the world forces of this darkness.”

• 2 Corinthians 10:4. “The weapons of our warfare are … divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

• Matthew 18:18. “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.”

• Matthew 24:12. “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”

• John 3:16–17. “God did not send the Son … to judge the world, but that the world might be saved.”

• Isaiah 55:8. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.”

• 1 Corinthians 13:1–13. “When the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.”

• John 21:15-17. “Do you love Me? … Tend My sheep.”

• Ephesians 3:14–21. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”

• 1 John 4:16. “The one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.”

Quotes:

• “The way that we would deal with everything that's going on right now is not at all the way God wants to deal with it.”

• “What the world doesn't need right now is the Body of Christ being a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. They're surrounded by enough confusion.”

• “The only thing that doesn't fail is love. The only thing that is not partial is love.”

Takeaways:

1. All the anti-Semitism and hatred that we see in the world today is coming from the spirit realm and must be dealt with from the spirit realm.

2. God’s answer to all the problems in the world was to send His love. Out of His love for us, God sent His Son not to judge mankind but to deliver us from the spirits of wickedness that control us.

3. In the crucifixion of Christ, satan was trying to kill God’s love. Today he is trying to kill God’s love coming forth in us. That is where our battle is; it is not against people.

4. Our human love is inadequate. We need the impartation of God’s love.

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Web Description: Can we be witnesses of Christ in the same way that the first disciples and apostles were? I believe we can—and we must if we want to have the authority behind what we say and the power to impact the world in the way that needs to happen.

Show Notes: According to the Hebrew Scriptures, to be a witness meant that you saw and heard firsthand what you were testifying about. Otherwise your testimony was not legal. The disciples and apostles of Yeshua (Jesus) therefore were true witnesses of Christ. They saw and heard firsthand everything that Christ did and taught. But the term witness in today’s Christianity does not meet that definition. Being a witness now means telling others what you believe about Christ, not what you witnessed Him do firsthand.

I believe that not being witnesses according to this scriptural definition leaves us without the level of authority and power we need to break through the wickedness of this age and open people’s hearts to the Lord. That of course brings up the question: How can we be firsthand witnesses of Yeshua two thousand years later? One answer to that is in the ministry of the apostle Paul. After Yeshua’s ascension, Paul became a witness of all Christ said and did through the appearings and visions of Christ to him.

That means that the same experience is available to us by the Holy Spirit. After Christ’s resurrection the disciples themselves had to have a spiritual impartation because they did not understand what they saw take place. When the Lord appeared to Job, he confessed, “I have spoken that which I did not know.” Instead of speaking that which we do not know, we should contend to see Him face to face and be witnesses of that which we know as we are fully known. This is a promise that we reach into with all our hearts.

Key Verses:

• 1 Corinthians 15:1–8. “As to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”

• Acts 22:6–16. “You will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard.”

• 2 Corinthians 12:1–4. “Such a man was caught up … and heard inexpressible words.”

• Job 42:1–6. “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.”

• 1 Corinthians 13:8–13. “Now I know in part, but then I will know fully.”

• John 3:3–11. “We speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen.”

• Matthew 24:3–14. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached … as a testimony [witness].”

Quotes:

• “Can the gospel of the Kingdom be preached as a witness if there are no witnesses?”

• “The Lord told Paul he would be a witness, and He imparted to him that which he needed to see and hear firsthand in order to be a witness.”

• “I do believe that it is a potential to reach in and truly become a witness in any generation.”

Takeaways:

1. Currently our level of witnessing is to tell others about our faith in Christ. We should contend to become true witnesses of Christ like the first disciples and apostles were—like Paul was.

2. When the Lord appeared to Job, Job had to repent because he was speaking that which he did not know. How much do we as Christians speak that which we do not know?

3. We know in part and prophecy in part. But the promise is that we will see Him face to face and know as we are fully known.

4. When we talk about being witnesses, we understand that there is a great deal of impartation from Christ by the Spirit that was given to the apostles, as well as to the other disciples and to Paul. By the Spirit we can contend for the same experience.

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Web Description: Being a witness of Christ needs to be more than sharing what we believe or what we heard from someone else. Like us, Paul was in Christ after the Ascension, but he did not share with others what he heard from the disciples. In Christ’s appearing to him, Paul received all that the disciples experienced and that is what he delivered to the world. This Pentecost we should contend to be witnesses like Paul.

Show Notes: The disciples and the apostles of Yeshua (Jesus) were true witnesses. They were witnesses of His resurrection and of His appearings to them. Even more they were witnesses of the Scriptures because He opened their minds to understand everything that was written in them concerning the Christ. So they had an experience with the Lord that was beyond seeing Him with their eyes and physically interacting with Him. They had an impartation that truly equipped them to be witnesses.

When we engage in witnessing today, I think we have to be honest and admit that we are not expressing those same qualifications. Witnessing for us is simply the process of telling others what we believe. We are not sharing firsthand experiences of seeing or hearing or receiving from Yeshua. However, the more we move into the end times, the more we need the qualifications of those first witnesses of Christ. Yet is it possible to witness what they witnessed two thousand years after the fact?

I believe it is and we have the perfect example in the apostle Paul. Paul was not with the disciples of Yeshua to witness everything Christ did. Yet when Paul saw Christ after the Ascension, his mind was opened to behold all that had transpired with Christ. He became a witness in all respects like the disciples and delivered to the world what he received directly from Christ. I believe it was by the Holy Spirit that Paul was able to have these experiences that made him a witness. And by the Holy Spirit we should be contending for the true experiences with Christ that will make us witnesses.

Key Verses:

• Luke 24:25–30. “He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

• Luke 24:31–32. “Then their eyes were opened and they recognized Him.”

• Luke 24:44–45. “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

• Luke 24:48–40. “You are witnesses of these things.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:3–8. “I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received.”

• Acts 22:6–15. “You will be a witness for Him to all men of what you have seen and heard.”

• 2 Corinthians 12:1–7. “I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.”

Quotes:

• “I believe this generation needs witnesses, not just people talking about their faith.”

• “When we look at the ministry of Paul, we recognize that Christ appeared to him just as He appeared to those on the road to Emmaus, just as he appeared to the disciples and apostles.”

• “Paul is giving as a witness what was delivered to him, what was imparted to him, what he saw when he saw Christ. So his mind was opened to see, to behold all that had transpired with Christ.”

Takeaways:

1. Paul was a true witness. And he became that witness following the ascension of Christ.

2. If Paul could become such a witness, then I believe we can also. Paul is proof that we can become witnesses in our generation.

3. Please remember there is a great deal of difference between being a witness and being a believer talking about our faith. We need to be witnesses to this generation.

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Web Description: On the Day of Pentecost, the apostles were endued with power by the Holy Spirit, and that is something we emphasize the need for. But the other aspect of their ability to bring the world to Christ is also something that we need in the world today. That is the fact that they were His witnesses. Yes, our power to impact the world will be that we are filled with the Holy Spirit. But it will also be that we are true witnesses of the Lord.

Show Notes: We recognize that the disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) were called witnesses, and we use that term quite a bit within the Church atmosphere today. We talk about going out and witnessing to others, which absolutely is an important part of our Christian life. But I think that we have lost the true meaning of the word witness. I think we are using the term too lightly, and that takes away from the veracity of it and the impact that it needs to have.

The apostles were actual witnesses. They had witnessed Yeshua’s teachings and His works. They witnessed Him as the resurrected Lord. The disciple who replaced Judas had to have this requirement of being a witness. The Church focuses on the fact that these men were endued with power at Pentecost. But their impact on the world was also because they were witnesses. And we cannot ignore that fact if we want to impact the world today.

We cannot sell short the power of what it is to be witnesses. It is time to minister to the world around us, and we need to do more than tell people what we believe in. We need to see true witnesses of the Lord going throughout the earth today. Let us reach into this in our hearts and in our own experiences. You could ask, “How is it possible to be witnesses of Christ so long after His ascension?” That is what we will cover in the next podcast. Be sure to listen to it.

Key Verses:

• Luke 24:13–27. “He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.”

• Luke 24:28–45. “He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures.”

• Luke 24:46–48. “You are witnesses of these things.”

• Luke 24:49. “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

• Acts 1:21–22. “One of these must become a witness with us of His resurrection.”

Quotes:

• “The anointing upon them was tremendous, but they were in fact witnesses of these things. They were telling people what they had seen, what they had heard, what they truly were witnesses of.”

• “I believe there’s no reason for us not to take another step beyond where we have been and where the Church has been.”

• “I believe what this generation needs are true witnesses under the power of the Holy Spirit that can bring an impartation of change to the lives of individuals that are hearing it.”

Takeaways:

1. For us to impact the world in a way that deals with the wickedness and depravity that is so prevalent today, there is a need for two elements: (1) that we truly be witnesses, and (2) that we be endued with power from on high through the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

2. Being a witness is more than telling people that we believe in what was written in the Gospels. That is wonderful and it can be powerful. But we need the power that the witnesses of Christ who wrote the Gospels had.

3. Those who witnessed the resurrected Christ not only heard what He said but also had the Scriptures imparted to their minds—something that was essential if they were to go out and speak to the world about what they had witnessed. We need the same witness of the Word today.

For Further Study:

Read Luke 24:13–49. Let this story impact your heart. Let it impact your life. And let it be something you use to contend with the Lord as we approach these tremendous days of Pentecost.

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Web Description: In this day we need the power of God to be moving in us and through us. Yet we are often so conditioned by our past experiences that we do not believe in that power or, at the very least, lose the edge of our faith. The Passover shows us that God does deliver His people, and He does move in power. By thanking God for the lessons of the past, forgiving others, and moving into the love of Christ, we can move into God’s fullness and the knowledge of His power that works within us.

Show Notes: When Moses came to them, the children of Israel had spent four hundred years in bondage to the Egyptians. Then they suddenly had to believe in the miracle power of God. Their conditioning made it very difficult for them to trust in God’s concern for them, let alone believe that He would deliver them from bondage and give them their own land. We too, as people who have walked with God, have been conditioned by what we have gone through in the past.

We may have been led by God to pray for certain things or to be involved with certain people. Then after years of never seeing answers to our prayers or of having problems in relationships, we find that past experiences have worn away at our own ability to believe that we will see the power of God working in our lives. But the Passover is a reminder that God moves in power, and an aspect of the Passover was God moving to deliver the children of Israel from their past.

We need this aspect of Passover to work deeply in our lives to free us from the conditionings of the past. And a key to being free from the past is forgiveness. As probably every Christian knows, forgiving others is one of the most difficult things we must do in our walk with God. Yet Paul tells us to know the love of Christ that is beyond knowledge. Clearly this divine love requires a divine enabling, but it is available to us in Christ. And we loose ourselves to appropriate it until we are filled up to all the fullness of God and are able to know the power of God that is above and beyond anything we can ask or think.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 43:19. “Behold, I will do something new …; will you not be aware of it?”

• Exodus 5:20–21. “They met Moses. … ‘May the Lord … judge you.’”

• Genesis 50:20. “You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good.”

• Psalm 105:19. “Until the time that his word came to pass, the word of the LORD tested him.”

• Hebrews 5:8–9. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

• Ephesians 3:14–19. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge.”

• Ephesians 3:20–21. “To Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think.”

• Hebrews 12:26–27 “Those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”

• Ephesians 1:19–20. “His power toward us who believe … when He raised Him from the dead.”

• Philippians 3:13–14. “… forgetting what lies behind.”

• Isaiah 55:6. “Seek the LORD while He may be found.”

Quotes:

• “I want Him not just to forgive me; I want Him to forget those things. We look for that thoroughness in our relationship with Him. But it means we’ve got to be that thorough in our relationship with others.”

• “We not only want to be aware of the new day; we want to be free in our spirits to walk in the new day.”

• “When we know the love of Christ, we will be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

Takeaways:

1. If after being led by the Lord, circumstances happen to you that seem like a bondage to you, it does not mean that God did that. But God allowed it for the ongoing perfection of your heart and spirit before Him.

2. We all stand before God as individuals. We can choose to be one in our hearts with others and walk with God together, but that only works because each of us walks with Him individually.

3. We are in a new day, and we must be able to walk with Him in the new things He is doing. And so we want to be freed from all our conditionings and paradigms from the past. We must be totally free in our spirits from any judgment, any criticism, any lack of forgiveness and come into the love of Christ.

4. We reach in to know the love of Christ that is beyond understanding, whereby God can fill us up to all the fullness of God. We must know that God can do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think and that His unlimited power, which is continually beamed toward us, will work in us and through us to accomplish His will.

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Web Description: We can look out on the world today and ask, “Where is the power of God? Where are the miracles and signs and wonders that God did in the past?” When we ask that, we are looking in the wrong direction because the same power of God that did those signs and wonders of the past, the very power of the Resurrection, is beamed directly to us who believe. We need to become aware of that and turn loose this power that is within us.

Show Notes: God is powerful, and He moves in power. He moved in power when He delivered the children of Israel out of Egypt. He moved in power when He raised Yeshua (Jesus) from the dead. Yet as we go along day after day without seeing Him move with similar manifestations of power, we tend to let go of the faith and anticipation we need, and we neglect to exercise our belief in His miracle power, in His strength, in His deliverance, and in what He should be in our daily lives.

According to Paul, the power that God exercised to deliver Israel out of Egypt and raise Yeshua from the dead is the very same power He is beaming to us who believe in Christ. We can say that we believe in everything God has given us. We believe we have salvation. We believe our sins are forgiven. We believe we have a calling and a destiny and blessings from God. But are we aware of the surpassing greatness of His power that is directed toward us who believe?

Paul prayed that we would have a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened to be aware of this power of God that is readily available to us through our belief in Him. But growing in this awareness takes energy on our part. We must seek the Lord with all our hearts, with all our might, and with all our strength. We must seek Him while He may be found. We must cry out to Him to release that power in our lives. He is a God of power. He is a God of strength. And we as His sons and daughters must not forget that.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 1:3–6. “God … has blessed us with every spiritual blessing.”

• Ephesians 1:7–14. “The riches of His grace … He lavished on us.”

• Ephesians 1:15–19. “I pray that … you will know … what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.”

• Deuteronomy 4:34. “By a mighty hand and … outstretched arm … the LORD your God did for you.”

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is … against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

• Ephesians 1:20–23. “He … seated Him … far above all rule and authority and power and dominion.”

• Ephesians 1:18–20 (NET). “The eyes of your heart have been enlightened.”

• Ephesians 3:14–21. “… beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

• Deuteronomy 6:5. “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

• Isaiah 55:6. “Seek the LORD while He may be found.”

Quotes:

• “It’s very important for us to read in the Scriptures the reality that God has planned and promised to move for us, in us, and through us with His mighty power.”

• “I think we can lose the fact that we’re serving a God of power.”

• “This power that is being beamed towards us is also the power of the Resurrection, which is to impact us and to dwell in us.”

Takeaways:

1. Life in the natural world continues as it always has from the time it was set in motion at the creation. Not a lot that is miraculous seems to take place in it. Therefore, we have difficulty believing in the power of God that moves in signs and wonders.

2. Our salvation in Christ means that we have an inheritance. God has given to us everything that Christ is and does. That includes the surpassing greatness of His power, which is the same power that resurrected Christ and seated Him at God’s right hand in heavenly places.

3. The power of God that delivered the children of Israel from everything that had power over them in Egypt is the same power that resides in us. God can do anything above and beyond what we could ask or think because of this power within us.

4. We are not asking enough or thinking enough in terms of what this power can do in our lives. And we need to change that. We need to wait on the Lord and meditate on Him to connect with this power within us.

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Web Description: The God who shook the powers of Egypt and delivered His people with signs and wonders is the same God who will shake all things in the latter days. The fact that we may not have seen God move that way in our lifetime is not the issue. The issue is whether or not we will be the prepared people whose faith hastens His coming in this day.

Show Notes: Read Deuteronomy chapter 4. Before they entered Canaan to possess the land, Moses reminded the children of Israel about their wanderings in the wilderness, their time in Egypt, and how God delivered them with signs and wonders. In the retelling of their story, Moses began with the statement: “For the LORD your God is a consuming fire.” This was true for them then, but it is also prophetic of the days to come. It needs to be real to us that God is going to move again as He did in Egypt.

In many ways we are just like the children of Israel who were so conditioned by their bondage in Egypt for four hundred years that they had great difficulty believing that God would deliver them. As Christians we have two thousand years of history, much of which has been under the oppression of the world’s systems. We know we should believe that Christ can come at any moment with the power of God in signs and wonders and establish His Kingdom on this earth. But we struggle having the intense faith that we need because we have never seen the Lord move in that way.

We tend to see Him just like the Israelites did in Egypt—He was the God of their fathers, a God who moved in the past. But we cannot let the passage of time cause us to lose faith. Our God is and always has been a consuming fire, and He will again shake all things. He is the same God who delivered His people when their preparation was complete. And just as He came down when they cried out to Him, He will respond to us when we seek Him with all our heart, knowing that He will move in the earth when we are the prepared people He is waiting for.

Key Verses:

• Deuteronomy 4:24. “The LORD your God is a consuming fire.”

• Deuteronomy 4:25–30. “From there you will seek the LORD your God.”

• Deuteronomy 4:31–40. “You shall keep His statutes and His commandments.”

• 2 Peter 3:3–14. “The Lord is not slow about His promise … but is patient toward you.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Do not be conformed to this world.”

• Hebrews 12:18–27. “ONCE MORE I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.”

• Hebrews 12:28–29. “Our God is a consuming fire.”

Quotes:

• “He will see every promise that He has given us fulfilled. And our job is to be believers. We must believe. We must not doubt because time has passed.”

• “We are living in the delusion of the material world that surrounded us and convinced us of something other than the living God who has the power to move in our lives.”

• “He is waiting for the natural world to have its total preparation for what transpires in the day of His return. More than that, He may just be waiting for you. He may be waiting for your growth and maturity, for you to come to the place where you are ready.”

Takeaways:

1. We are not to lose our faith because of the passing of time. We are to grow in our gratitude and offer up worship to God in reverence and awe. We should remember what Moses said: “Our God is a consuming fire.” And He is not slow to fulfill His promises.

2. Let us remember those promises. Let us remember the Words of God. And let us look back to our fathers—not to grow weak in faith but to be strengthened by their experience of watching and beholding the power of God moving in their midst on this earth.

3. We know that God will move to establish His Kingdom and bring Yeshua the Messiah to rule on the earth. That is what we believe and that is what we wait for. As a result, we do not grow weak in faith but grow bolder and have more anticipation to see God move on this earth.

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Web Description: As we observe Holocaust Memorial Day this year with Israel, we must acknowledge the miserable failure of the United Nations to fulfill the goal of its own Holocaust Remembrance Day, which was to prevent the very thing that happened on October 7, 2023. We wake up to the fact that the determination to annihilate the Jews is not gone. And we raise our voices to the nations and declare our determination that the Holocaust will never be forgotten and that nothing like it will ever happen again.

Show Notes: On May 6, 2024, Israel will observe their annual Holocaust Memorial Day. It is important to understand that this aspect of remembrance is something that God has imparted to the heart of the Jewish people. Remembering their history and teaching the lessons of that history from generation to generation is a focal point during the annual fasts and feasts in observance of the Sabbath and in the daily prayers. The Holocaust Remembrance Day, established by United Nations Resolution 60/7, was to have this same focus: to remember the Holocaust and to teach future generations so that something like the Holocaust will never happen again.

Yet the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, has exposed the absolute failure of the U.N. to implement the very resolution it established. The horrors inflicted on innocent Israelis on October 7 proved the stated purpose of Hamas and other Islamic jihadist forces, which is the total annihilation of all Jews and Israel—the exact same purpose the Nazis had during WWII with the Holocaust. Not only did the U.N. fail in educating people to prevent this attack, but U.N. personnel actually educated the new generation of Gazan children to hate and annihilate the Jews. Furthermore, facilities and employees financed by the U.N. actively joined Hamas in committing the atrocities of October 7.

We need to recognize this if we are to have an effective time of remembrance of the Holocaust and October 7, 2023. For this year’s memorial, please stand with the Jews throughout the world and with the State of Israel to remember the horrors of the Holocaust, to remember the horrors of October 7, and to honor the memory of those brutally murdered in these and other anti-Semitic attempts of annihilation. So please let your voice be heard in any way you can and in every way you can. Let it be heard clearly by your neighbors and by the nations. Let the cry ring out, “Never forget and never again!”

Key Verses:

• Exodus 20:8. “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.”

• Exodus 20:11. “The LORD … rested on the seventh day.”

• Deuteronomy 5:15. “You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the LORD your God redeemed you.”

Quotes:

• “When you’re remembering these events like the days of slavery in Egypt and the way God delivered them out of Egypt, it’s filled with lessons. And these lessons are to be remembered; they’re to be learned, and they’re to be taught and imparted generation after generation to all of Israel.”

• “We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to today. The reason we remember is because we want to do something about it today. We want to never forget what God has been teaching, and we want to do something about it.”

• “As Israel prepares to remember the Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel this year, sadly it is marred by the anti-Semitic protests that are transpiring in many nations. And these again are happening because of the failure of not only the United Nations as an organization, but also the nations themselves—the failure to educate the children.”

Takeaways:

1. The observances of the Jewish people all have an emphasis on remembrance. The people are to remember what God did, act on what they remember, and teach the lessons of that memory to their children from generation to generation.

2. Holocaust Remembrance Day was instituted by the U.N. for that same purpose. It was enacted so that the Holocaust would be remembered and acted upon, and so that future generations would be taught the lessons of the Holocaust to prevent something like it from ever happening again.

3. The widespread anti-Semitism in the world and the barbarity of the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, have exposed the massive failure of the U.N. to uphold and implement the purpose of the Holocaust Remembrance Day that it established.

4. As Christians we must make our voices heard to remember and to teach about the Holocaust and October 7, 2023, and we declare, “Never forget and never again!”

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Web Description: The Passover is a reminder of how God can move with signs and wonders by His great power. And we must continue to remind ourselves lest we forget God and turn away from Him after a period of preparation. Let this Passover be a time of remembering, a time of expectation in our faith to see God move.

Show Notes: By the time the Lord sent Moses to deliver them, the children of Israel had never seen God move. Maybe they had heard about Him in stories handed down from their fathers. But after four hundred years of slavery and oppression, they had a hard time believing the words of Moses that this God they had never known was about to deliver them. Yet God did deliver them exactly as He had promised Abraham He would.

Then after God delivered them by a mighty hand and signs and wonders, His presence continued to be with them, miraculously protecting them and sustaining them for forty years in the wilderness. So when the children of Israel were about to take the land as God had promised, Moses gave them a warning. After living in the land for a long time, it would again be easy for them to forget all that God had done for them. So they must continually tell the story from generation to generation and not lose their faith in Him.

This telling of the story is an important aspect of the Passover that we need today. I think we are too much like those Israelites, who after waiting a long time could not believe in God, or they even abandoned His ways. We too can say that we have heard the stories about God and Yeshua (Jesus). But is He our God or just the God of our fathers? And this Passover I hope that we can remind ourselves. We may be in a time of preparation when God does not seem to be moving. But He is never without His great power, and He will move when He is ready. Will we be ready?

Key Verses:

• Genesis 46:2–4. “Go down to Egypt, for I will make you a great nation there.”

• Genesis 15:12–16. “Your descendants will be strangers in a land. … Then in the fourth generation they will return here.”

• Exodus 12:41. “At the end of four hundred and thirty years, to the very day, all the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”

• Deuteronomy 10:20–22. “Now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.”

• Deuteronomy 4:24–34. “He will not fail you nor destroy you nor forget the covenant with your fathers which He swore to them.”

• Deuteronomy 4:35–40. “Know that the LORD, He is God; there is no other besides Him.”

Quotes:

• “Maybe it’s been a long time since we’ve seen God really overtly move on the earth or in the heavens through His power, through His determination to fulfill His Word. But He is going to move again, and we must be prepared for it.”

• “One of the reasons God wants us to remember is so that we in our hearts can stay faithful and prepared.”

• “Passover is preparing you for tomorrow. It’s not just talking to you about a story of yesterday.”

Takeaways:

1. God is always working to prepare the material world for His moving. That may take time, but that does not mean He is not a God of power and might. He will move in signs and wonders when it comes time to bring about the fulfillment of His Word in the earth.

2. Moses came with signs and wonders when he matured and the time had come for Israel’s deliverance. Yeshua came with signs and wonders at the time that He matured and everything was ready for Him to manifest as the Messiah.

3. Passover teaches us that our hearts must always be prepared and be anticipating the power of God to move in our midst to fulfill His Word, His covenants, and His promises with Israel and with us as believers in Christ.

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Web Description: This podcast is a call to prayer in response to a clear attempt by the current US administration to replace the duly elected democratic government of Israel. We need to bind our hearts together and unite our spirits as Christians to pray that the United States of America will not be moved into a place of being cursed by God.

Show Notes: Psalm 83 talks about the countries who conspire together to wipe Israel out as a nation. Many believe that this psalm refers to a specific war that must take place in the end-time. Yet there have been many times in history when countries have come against Israel to destroy it. And we can easily apply this psalm to the fact that many nations are aligning themselves against Israel in this current conflict with Hamas. What is very concerning is that the Biden administration is positioning the United States of America to be one of those countries trying to destroy Israel.

On the floor of the US Senate, Chuck Schumer called for new elections in Israel and the ousting of Netanyahu. This attempt to undermine the elected leader of an ally who has the support of the Israeli people underscored the shocking fact that the US government is plotting to overthrow the government of Israel. This comes at a time when there truly is an existential threat against Israel, and the Israeli people need our support more than ever.

The reviling of Israel by Schumer and by others in the US government falls into the category of cursing God’s people and positions the US to be cursed by God. And we know that the prophecies about Israel in the end-time always address how God will call to account every nation that comes against Israel. The fact that the US is involved in coming against Israel right now is a wakeup call for all Americans. We need to pray for Americans to wake up and speak up and be the blessing to Israel that this country was raised up by God to be.

Key Verses:

• Psalm 83:1–5. “They have said, ‘Come, and let us wipe them out as a nation.’”

• Psalm 83:13–18. “Let them be humiliated and perish.”

• Genesis 12:1–3. “The one who curses you I will curse.”

Quotes:

• “I feel an ominous thing in my spirit about this. And again, the ominous concern is what are we facing as the United States of America as a result of God saying, ‘I’m going to curse the person or the nation that curses you’”?

• “This is not an issue about the upcoming elections in November. It’s not about Biden and Trump. This is about the coming future of this country and where we stand in the plan of God.”

• “I believe we’re called to change the darkness of this age into light. And I think we better start flipping the switches and making it happen now.”

Takeaways:

1. Psalm 83 is not necessarily about a future war. There have been many times in history when people have tried to wipe out Israel as a nation. And that is happening now.

2. It is clear that the US is reviling Israel and undermining its ability to defend itself from being wiped out. According to Genesis 12:3, this is equivalent to cursing Israel and puts us in danger of being cursed by God.

3. The current US administration is trying to unilaterally impose a government on a democratic country that is our closest ally in the region. It is doing this against the will of the Israeli people and against the will of the majority of Americans who support Israel.

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Web Description: It is difficult to see the Lord’s description of Laodicea in the book of Revelation in a positive light. But the lesson we need to take away from it is how great a love the Lord has for us. No matter how much we may have damaged our relationship with Him, He is always knocking on the door of our hearts. And we need to open that door and let Him in, honestly evaluating ourselves as we commune with Him, and let Him make a personal covenant with us.

Show Notes: I think we resist learning the lessons of Laodicea in the book of Revelation because no one wants to be associated with the lukewarm church that the Lord spews out of His mouth. But we need to read the example of Laodicea with a new understanding. First of all the Laodiceans did not get to their state of lukewarmness overnight. They had been refusing the Lord for a long time. And we must end the pattern of refusing the Lord in our own lives. Next, we must see that the picture of the Laodicean church in Revelation is a picture of God’s deep love for us.

Even though the Laodiceans had continually refused Him, the Lord was always knocking on their door, always pleading with them to let Him in. That means that no matter how separated from the Lord we have become, we can always open the door to Him and let Him back into our hearts. The Lord said, “If anyone opens the door ….” He is not addressing the Church in general. He is speaking to each one of us individually. If you open the door to the Lord, He will come in and dine with you personally.

As we read in the Hebrew Scriptures, people ate together to make a covenant, and the Lord wants to make a personal covenant with each one of us. But for that to happen we must first take the initiative to open the door of our heart to let Him in. Then by seeing Him we will be like Job who said, “I have heard about the Lord before, but now my eyes see You. Therefore, I retract and repent in dust and ashes.” There will be a brokenness, but there will also be the joy of experiencing His love, of having a personal covenant with Him in His blood that is so necessary in these times.

Key Verses:

• Revelation 3:14–22. “If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him.”

• Jeremiah 31:31. “I will make a new covenant.”

• Matthew 23:37–39. “How often I wanted to gather your children together.”

• Hebrews 12:18–24. “You have come to … Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant.”

• Hebrews 12:25–29. “See to it that you do not refuse Him who is speaking.”

• Job 42:1–6. “Now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent.”

• 1 Corinthians 11:23–32. “A man must examine himself, and in so doing he is to eat of the bread and drink of the cup.”

• Isaiah 1:18. “Come now, and let us reason together.”

Quotes:

• “No matter how many times we may have refused Him in the past, He’s looking for us to open our hearts, to sit down with Him, and to, in essence, negotiate a new covenant.”

• “He’s looking for something to happen on a level that is beyond what we as believers have ever known or ever understood before. And as this happens, we will find ourselves being very humble, very much in repentance before the Lord and opening our hearts in a way that maybe we were not able to open our hearts before.”

• “Let us find that place of brokenness in our heart where there can be true repentance and true hunger to relate to Him in a new way.”

Takeaways:

1. We have refused the Lord many times in our relationship with Him. But it is time to stop doing that. I feel like we are coming to a place in the timing of the Lord in these days when we need to be far more cautious about saying “No” to Him.

2. No matter how extensive our previous refusals of Him have been, Christ comes again to plead with us in these last days.

3. It really is time for us to make a personal covenant of peace with the coming Messiah. We talk a lot about the new covenant. And I believe there is a covenant once again that the Lord wants to make, and that is a very personal covenant with each one of us.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: Paul wrote that in everything he had gone through he had but one cry: “that I may know Him.” We have that same cry. Whatever we have gone through has been for the single purpose that we may know the Lord, that we may behold Him and be transformed into His image. As we have been celebrating the Feast of Purim, let us believe for the instant change that comes for us as we stand in the presence of the King today.

Show Notes: I think most people avoid the book of Job because they do not want to read about all the suffering that God allowed satan to inflict on Job. But we also know from the book of Job that God allowed it to teach Job and bring him to a place of greater blessing in his life. It also may seem to us that satan is behind much of the suffering we go through. Yet we know that nothing happens to us without God allowing it. And He is allowing it to teach us, to impart to us, and to bring us out of something old into something new.

At the end of his experience, Job said, “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.” When I read this, it just came so alive to me that everything we have gone through has been allowed by God to bring us to the place where our eye sees Him. Like Job, we have heard about the Lord. We have had amazing teaching about God. We have heard and spoken a living Word. But there is a new level of beholding the Lord that I believe is available to us.

Moses was someone who heard the voice of the Lord, who moved in miracles of God, but everything changed for him when he beheld the Lord and spoke with Him face to face. Everything changed for Esther and for the Jewish people when she stood face to face with the king. This instant change is what we celebrate at the Feast of Purim. Let us believe to behold the Lord, to stand before the Lord and speak with Him face to face. Everything can change as a result.

Key Verses:

• Job 42:1–6. “I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You.”

• Exodus 33:9–11. “Whenever Moses entered the tent, … the LORD used to speak to Moses face to face.”

• Esther 4:14. “Who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?”

• 2 Corinthians 3:18. “We all … beholding … the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.”

• Philippians 3:7–10. “I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish … that I may know Him.”

Quotes:

• “It’s too real to go through these experiences knowing that maybe they’re even satanically initiated. But they’re allowed by God, and in God’s allowance He is teaching us.”

• “Up to this point we’ve known about Him, we’ve spoken about Him, but it hasn’t taken away the cry to really behold Him and see Him and know Him on another level.”

• “I’m glad for the loss. I’m glad for what God has taken me through because I count all these other things now as rubbish that I might gain Christ.”

Takeaways:

1. We have heard the Word of the Lord spoken to us. We have heard many things about the Lord. We have been taught many things about the Lord. But I feel like there is an experience for us where we behold the Lord.

2. Paul wrote that everything he had known in the past was rubbish compared with knowing the Lord. And everything that we have known, no matter how important it was to us, no matter how difficult it was, has been to bring us to this place of beholding the Lord in a new way.

3. God has been dealing with our hearts and preparing us for such a time as this, just as Mordecai told Esther. And we know that what initiated the events of Purim was Esther going in and standing before the king. We too cry for this experience of standing before the Lord and knowing Him in a way that we have never known before.

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Web Description: Who is going to minister God’s great new covenant of forgiveness to the world? The Body of Christ is to do that. But how can we minister God’s forgiveness if we ourselves are unable to forgive others? First we must realize how much we need the ability to forgive. Then we must realize that our ability to forgive is based on having God’s nature of forgiveness within us. Let us appropriate His divine nature and be the forgivers He has enabled us to be.

Show Notes: When Nelson Mandela became president of the Republic of South Africa, many Black citizens were seeking to take revenge on the White population because of apartheid, and a bloodbath seemed unavoidable. But Mandela turned the tide of the inevitable violence and changed a nation. What he accomplished was a miracle. And the reason that miracle occurred is because he tapped into the divine nature of God. As someone whose own nature had been violent and unforgiving, Mandela took upon himself God’s nature of forgiveness.

We know from Christ’s teachings that God expects us to forgive others to the same extent that He has forgiven us. And God’s forgiveness of us through Christ was an intense, dramatic, proactive event. God’s forgiveness literally removes from us all the guilt for our sins against Him. I think we have to admit that we do not forgive others with that same determination, and we need to understand how much our inability to forgive others limits our effectiveness as the Body of Christ.

We should not be discouraged by that. God has provided for us that we might become partakers of His divine nature. Christ was able to forgive because He had the divine nature of the Father within Himself, and Christ is here to impart His nature to us. Let us hunger after His nature. Let us ask and seek and knock until the nature of God is imparted to us because then forgiveness will flow from us. If a single individual like Mandela could change a nation by laying hold of forgiveness, what could the Body of Christ do in this day?

Key Verses:

• John 3:16. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

• Luke 23:34. “Jesus was saying, ‘Father, forgive them.’”

• 2 Peter 1:2–4. “By them you may become partakers of the divine nature.”

• Matthew 6:12–15. “If you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions.”

• Mark 11:20–26. “Whenever you stand praying, forgive.”

• Jeremiah 31:31–34. “I will put My law within them. … I will forgive their iniquity.”

• Hebrews 10:16–18. “I WILL PUT MY LAWS UPON THEIR HEART, … AND THEIR SINS AND THEIR LAWLESS DEEDS I WILL REMEMBER NO MORE.”

• Matthew 19:26. “With people this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.”

• Matthew 26:39. “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

• John 10:17–18. “I lay down My life. … No one has taken it away from Me.”

Quotes:

• “Where is the power of our prayer and our prophetic proclamation? Where is the power that we should move in as true sons of God? Is it possible that it’s tied up in this whole thing of forgiveness?”

• “Everything that God did in Christ was about forgiveness. And forgiveness is something that is tremendously proactive.”

• “God wants you to take on His nature. What is His nature? His nature is forgiveness.”

• “Don’t start by trying to forgive. Start by seeking His nature.”

Takeaways:

1. Without the ability to forgive, I believe that our effectiveness in prayer and in speaking the Words of the Lord are thwarted.

2. Forgiveness is truly an aspect of the nature of God. As believers we should not regard forgiveness as simply a doctrinal concept, but we should literally appropriate this divine nature from God in order that we have the same capability of forgiveness.

3. God promised that we can be partakers of His divine nature. Therefore, we need to seek God until His attribute of forgiveness is a part of our beings.

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Web Description: We can look at what is happening in the world today and feel like darkness is taking over; everything is getting worse and worse, and nothing is going to change. But the Scriptures give us a different picture. The Scriptures show us that things can change in an instant, and the story of Esther is a prime example of that. As we celebrate the Feast of Purim this year, let us anticipate that when we come before the King in our intercession, He will reverse the plot of destruction against God’s people and turn our mourning into rejoicing.

Show Notes: The book of Esther records that the Jews established the Feast of Purim “for themselves and for their descendants and for all those who allied themselves with them.” It was established so that all generations will remember how the annihilation that was determined and already set in motion was suddenly reversed. In an instant their mourning, sorrow, and fear of destruction were changed into a celebration of gladness and a holiday of feasting and rejoicing.

The Feast of Purim therefore is a celebration of instant change. When we celebrate it, we remember that no matter how bleak things are, everything can change in a moment. What could be bleaker than the plot for complete annihilation of the Jews in the time of Esther? Yet the reversal of that plot has been passed down to us as a remembrance that if we enter the presence of the King and bring our need to His attention, He will command the change and by His Word the destruction that is set to transpire will not happen.

As we see today with Hamas and Israel, satan is still set to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. And as we approach the time of the end, we are seeing satan’s plot against the whole earth, expanding from the Jewish people into humanity in his determination to destroy all flesh. But we also know by Purim and by the examples of the Scriptures that the plan of destruction can be completely reversed in a moment. So we do not let our hope be tainted by the negativity that surrounds us. We celebrate Purim this year with our hope renewed; and that hope is for instant change.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 60:1–3. “Darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; but the LORD will rise upon you.”

• Esther 9:20–22. “It was … turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday.”

• Mark 13:19–20. “Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved.”

• Esther 9:23–25. “When it came to the king’s attention, he commanded.”

• Esther 9:26–28. “The Jews … made a custom for themselves and for their descendants and for all those who allied themselves with them.”

• Isaiah 29:5–7. “It will happen instantly, suddenly.”

• Isaiah 17:12–14. “At evening time, behold, there is terror! Before morning they are no more.”

Quotes:

• “You can look and say, ‘How can this ever change? How can things ever really be restored to the Kingdom of God from the direction that they’re going? How could good come out of such evil?’ But we must know and understand that it can, and it will.”

• “We celebrate before we see. We have a time of celebration as an expression not only of our faith, but our knowing that God can bring about deliverance and change and bring about another purpose and will.”

• “This feast was consecrated by Mordecai for us as those who are allies with the Jewish people and with Israel. And so I proudly celebrate Purim and I am thankful for my inclusion in its celebration.”

Takeaways:

1. Purim is an example, which is repeated many times in the Scriptures, that things can change 180 degrees in just one moment.

2. We as believers must live in the knowledge and faith that at any second God can move and everything can change. We cannot be tainted by the oppression of this age.

3. We must never lose the reality in God that in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, everything can be different.

Scriptural Examples of Instant Change:

Purim. Read the book of Esther.

Passover. Read Exodus 12

The Famine in Samaria. Read 2 Kings 7

The Resurrection. Read John 19:30—John 20:29

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Web Description: In a Creation of infinite realms, why are we aware only of the material realm? If our salvation has opened the door to the realms of God’s presence and His Kingdom, why are we not continually drawing the life and blessings of those realms? If we are born again into the realm of spirit where Christ and the Father live, then with the Holy Spirit’s help let us grow and mature and learn to function in that realm.

Show Notes: God’s Creation is not just the one realm of the material world. There are many realms in Creation. For example, there is the spirit realm, and Yeshua (Jesus) said we that we must be born again by the Spirit and function in the realm of spirit. Yet we think of being born again as simply our initial salvation experience, and we continue to live our lives as if the physical world is all that exists. We talk about the spirit world, but for the most part we are unaware of that realm or how we are to operate within it.

Paul wrote to the Ephesians that we must not be like those who are excluded from the life of God because they are darkened in their understanding. Whenever we are without understanding of a realm then we are excluded from what is available to us within that realm. Our salvation is so much greater than an initial experience. God has made all the realms of His Creation available to us. But we cannot draw the fruit, the blessings, or the life that exists within a realm if we have no awareness or understanding about it.

There is so much in the Creation, in everything that God has made both visible and invisible. But if we are to receive all that is available for us in our salvation, then we must become aware of it. We must come to an understanding of it and realize that we have to mature by learning of these realms and not remain in a state of ignorance concerning them. Let us open up and pray, “Lord teach us. Show us and lead us. Let us grow up into mature sons and daughters of God who are able to know your will and know how to move in these beautiful and wonderful realms that you have created for us.”

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 4:11–16. “We are to grow up in all aspects into Him.”

• Ephesians 4:17–18. “Walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk … excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance.”

• 2 Peter 3:18. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

• Isaiah 66:1–2. “My hand made all these things, thus all these things came into being.”

• Isaiah 57:15. “I dwell on a high and holy place, and also with the contrite and lowly of spirit.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

• Ephesians 4:23–24. “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind.”

• 1 Thessalonians 5:23–24. “May your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete.”

• John 3:4–8. “So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

• John 3:9–12. “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

Quotes:

• “We are to become aware of these places that may be higher than our minds right now can conceive of. But it doesn’t mean that they’re not accessible to us if our hunger will drive us to learn.”

• “We can be ignorant because we never heard, we never learned, and nobody’s teaching us. Or we’re being restrained from the knowledge and the understanding.”

• “You cannot have a Christian walk that is just encased into the material world and the things that you are able to see and touch. There’s a world way beyond that. There’s much beyond that.”

Takeaways:

1. Within the Creation of God there are an infinite number of realms. Yet for the most part we are unaware of these realms or how to operate within them.

2. In the wonderful salvation that God has given us, realms beyond anything that we could ask or think or imagine are available to us. As believers in God and Christ and the Holy Spirit we must wake up to these realms that are involved in our faith and learn to operate within them.

3. The spirit realm or spirit world is one example of a realm that we talk about but do not really understand or know how to function in. We are generally poorly taught about the spirit realm because of the lack of teachers who have been experientially born of the Spirit—not just the initial salvation experience—and truly understand the spirit realm.

4. God give us the hunger to understand and learn how to walk in the spirit realm as completely and as competently as we walk in the natural realm.

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Web Description: At Gethsemane Christ prayed, “With you Father all things are possible.” But He also prayed, “Not My will but Yours be done.” It was possible to change what would happen, but Christ went to the cross knowing it was the will of the Father. In another example Moses contended with God for Israel and changed God’s plan for destruction. Why were these prayers effective in determining the will of God? They were prayed in the presence of God, and they proved, confirmed, and verified His will. Our faith that all things are possible will be effective when we do the same.

Show Notes: At Gethsemane Christ prayed, “Father, with You all things are possible,” and we have to realize that anything, including not going to the cross, could have happened from that place. He also prayed, “Nevertheless, Your will be done.” And once God applied His will and determination to how salvation would manifest, there were no other possibilities. Christ could not have done anything but go to the cross if He wanted to accomplish salvation.

Moses also, when He contended in God’s presence for Israel, was in that place where all things were possible. Even though God had said, “I am going to destroy this people and bring forth a new people from you,” the course God was on was not unchangeable at that point. Therefore, Moses intervened from that place of endless possibilities, and God changed from His intent and something different happened. We also see that Jonah said Nineveh would be destroyed. However, all things were still possible because the actions of the people in their repentance resulted in a completely different outcome.

Therefore, we cannot look at what is happening today and decide that the planned destruction, even if it is prophesied in the Bible, is inevitable. Our intercession and the actions of people can cause a different outcome. So we cannot be praying from a place where it is too late, when the course of action is unchangeable. We need to be interceding now, like Moses did, like Christ did, in the presence of the Father, proving out His will in order to create the future that God wants.

Key Verses:

• Mark 14:32–36. “Father! All things are possible for You; … yet not what I will, but what You will.”

• Mark 9:22–23. “All things are possible to him who believes.”

• Exodus 32:11–14. “The LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.”

• Jonah 3:5–10. “God relented concerning the calamity which He had declared.”

• Matthew 24:21–22. “For the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

• Mark 13:19–20. “Unless the Lord had shortened those days, no life would have been saved.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Prove what the will of God is.”

• Exodus 33:7-11. “Whenever Moses entered the tent … the LORD would speak with Moses.”

Quotes:

• “There are times when we face the reality that all things are not set. They’re not cast in stone. And it’s this level of prayer that I think God’s trying to draw us into. But I think there’s a presence, there’s a place we have to come into for that to be effective.”

• “It’s very much like Nineveh. God had a plan. He was going to destroy Nineveh. All of a sudden, He hears their repentance; He comes and says, “I relent.” From the moment He relents, the proposed future doesn’t happen.”

• “I don’t want to see us come to the doorstep that no flesh will be saved alive. I want to see that changed. I want to see it cut short. I want to see His will proven out that His people are chosen; they’re blessed; they have the land forever—that Christ comes and establishes His Kingdom in a timely manner before the earth suffers judgments and destruction that are not necessary to go through.”

Takeaways:

1. We see examples of where it appears as though the will of God had not been set, and therefore man’s intervention was able to be a part or the whole of determining what God ended up doing. So we do not know at this point what things are absolutely solidified in the will of God and what things are still existing in a realm of possibilities. And I think that we have to be very focused in our intercession to find that out.

2. We need to pray with the force of our hearts in that place as Christ was, knowing the Father’s will and proving His will, and knowing how much of what is before us is already determined in the unmovable will of God and how much is yet to be determined. Otherwise, we will find ourselves fighting against God.

3. When Moses prayed, he went to the tent of meeting where he engaged with God face to face. When Christ taught us to pray, He taught us the same principle. He said to go into the presence of the Father to pray. It is before His face where we contend for His will and ask in faith for all things that are possible to those who believe.

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Web Description: We know that Christ suffered many things, but it is important to realize that He did not go through any of His life as a victim. Instead it was a choice by His will to live the life that God had chosen for Him. He committed Himself to this choice after seeking God at Gethsemane and confirming that the cross was the will of the Father for Him. We too must have a Gethsemane experience where we confirm and understand the will of God for our lives and stand, like Christ, in faith through everything that we face.

Show Notes: It is clear that Yeshua (Jesus) knew and taught His disciples what His destiny was regarding His sufferings and the cross. He perfectly understood His destiny in God even before He went to the Garden of Gethsemane. Then at Gethsemane He confirmed that this destiny was the will of God for Him and He committed Himself to endure the cross through His own will. In other words Christ was not a victim.

This is important for us to realize, especially today when people exalt the concept of being a victim. As Christians, the idea that suffering makes us a victim is something we should be delivered from, not something we should embrace. Whatever is happening to us is not happening so that we have a victim mentality. It is happening so that we, like Christ, can know the will of the Father in our lives and we can choose to walk in His will and therefore stand as Christ did.

We need to understand what it really means to take up our cross and follow Him. It means that we first go through the Gethsemane experience as Christ did. We go before the Father knowing what His will for us is, understanding what we may face and what we may suffer as we walk in His will for our lives. Once we know absolutely that we are in His will, then we commit our own wills to that experience by our own choice. We are not victims of this age. We are not victims of the end-time. We walk by faith with a boldness and with a knowledge that what we are experiencing is the will of God for us.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 16:21–25. “Jesus began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things.”

• Matthew 20:17–19. “The Son of Man will be delivered to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn Him to death.”

• Matthew 26:36–39. “If it is possible, let this cup pass from Me; yet not as I will, but as You will.”

• Matthew 26:43–46. “And He left them again, and went away and prayed a third time.”

• Luke 22:39–47. “Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”

• Luke 9:20–24. “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily.”

Quotes:

• “We need to find a way to rise up, to really get hold of what our destiny is, our purpose in life is, our purpose in being here on this earth.”

• “Let’s pray. Let’s believe that there be an understanding on each of our hearts because each of us has a different destiny in God. And we need to understand what the will of God is for us.”

• “We cannot be like the disciples who passively fall asleep in the garden. We must be checking the will of God for our lives. We must be committing ourselves to the will of God in our lives so that we might walk by faith in the perfect will of God for ourselves.”

Takeaways:

1. Christ had a knowledge and understanding about His destiny. We see that Christ was prepared way beforehand by the Father. And I believe this should be part of our prayer as believers, to reach into the Father, to wait upon the Lord, to ask the Holy Spirit to teach us and bring revelation to us about the events and the destiny that are included in our life and out walk before the Lord.

2. When Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane He was confirming with the Father the destiny of the cross and the suffering so that he knew absolutely what the will of God was for His life.

3. Christ committed Himself by the choice of His will to walk in those things. He was not a victim. We need to go through the same process because as we walk in these last days we cannot have a victim mentality. If we do it will drain our faith and we will not be a witness to the world that we need to be of what it is to walk with the Father and do His will in our generation.

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Web Description: The book of Revelation describes a testing that will come upon the whole world. What is that testing? Very simply it is a test of what we believe. Will we believe God’s truth or will we believe satan’s lie? In response to Israel’s war against Hamas, many people today are failing this test by embracing the lies against Israel. As believers in Christ, we need to be passing the test. We need to be firmly rooted in the Word of God about Israel and be proclaimers of that Word.

Show Notes: What are the signs of the end-time? We could look at earthquakes and other natural disasters as possible signs. But an earthquake that happens in one part of the world and has no effect on the rest of the world is not necessarily an end-time event. The end-time is distinguished by events on a global scale. As we read in Revelation chapter 3, an hour of testing will come upon the whole world. It will have a global impact, and I believe that we are seeing the beginnings of this global testing.

Israel has experienced many regional conflicts, but the current war against Hamas is having a global impact that is drawing in all the nations of the world. All the nations are not engaging in physical conflict, but they are being tested. They are being tested by God to see if they will believe His truth or believe satan’s lie. And we see many who are exchanging the truth of God for a lie. They exchange the truth of God about Israel for lies that invoke calls for the destruction of Israel and genocide against Jews.

As Christians we must have the truth in ourselves and be proclaimers of the truth. By walking in a relationship with Yeshua (Jesus) and with the Father, we are a threat to the lie of satan. And we need to be. We need to be a source of the truth. We need to be a force that is speaking the truth in love to everyone we relate to. We cannot allow it that only the lie is out there. The truth must be out there, and it must win the war against the lie in an overwhelming way.

Key Verses:

• Revelation 3:10–12. “I also will keep you from the hour of testing … to come upon the whole world.”

• Hebrews 4:12. “For the word of God is … piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit.”

• Romans 1:16–20. “The wrath of God is … against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness.”

• Genesis 6:5. “The wickedness of man was great … every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”

• Genesis 15:13–16. “The iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”

• Romans 1:21–28. “They exchanged the truth of God for a lie.”

• John 8:44. “You are of your father the devil. … he is a liar and the father of lies.”

• John 14:30. “The ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in Me.”

• 2 Corinthians 5:17. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”

• Romans 12:2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Quotes:

• “What is the test on the whole world? It is will you believe the truth, or will you believe the lie? It’s that simple.”

• “What’s being forced upon people to believe is foolishness. And yet society has made us so cower under all this stuff you can’t speak up against it.”

• “At some point this reality kicks in where there’s a depravity of mind that comes about so that they’re no longer able to perceive the truth because they’ve exchanged it for the lie.”

• “We’re not going to stand up for the truth outside of us if we cannot stand up for the truth within us. And the truth within us is who He’s created us and called us to be.”

Takeaways:

1. Israel’s war against Hamas may be a regional conflict, but at the same time we are seeing globally the nations and the peoples of the nations being brought to a testing. What is that test? It is a test of what we are going to believe. Will we believe the truth, or will we believe the lie?

2. In the media and in every level of society we are beginning to see a global expression of anti-Semitism that morphs into genocide against Israel. We are seeing people suppress the truth in unrighteousness. They deliberately exchange the truth of God for a lie. And we know that this kind of wickedness and darkness overtaking mankind is what triggers God’s judgment as it did in the days of Noah.

3. Yeshua confronted those who had believed in Him because their hearts had been transformed to the place where they could not hear Him or hear the truth. As believers today we cannot let this happen to us. We cannot go along with the woke mentality of this age. We cannot go along with the lies being perpetrated as truth. We have to stand up for what God has said. We have to first cling to that in our own hearts, and then we must speak the truth boldly and clearly.

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Web Description: As Christians, we should not identify ourselves as merely human beings. It should come alive to us that we are divine beings who are having a human experience. We accept that we are born again. And if we are born again then we have died to our old self and are raised up in newness of life, having put on the new self that God created. In that case why continue to identify with the old self and its fleshly life? Focus on your new identity as a child of God that the Father is perfecting.

Show Notes: When we receive Christ, we become eternal beings who are born of God, but our experience of living in the flesh on the natural plane clouds our awareness of this reality. It needs to be real to us that our experience of living in the flesh on the earth is only a small part of our eternity and not the focus of who and what we are. It is certainly not God’s focus. During our time here on earth when we are clothed in these human bodies, He is focused on perfecting us as divine beings for an eternal life with Him.

The problem is that we give our focus and energy to our own concepts of what we are by virtue of experiencing this human life—what we are to be, how we are to act, who the people around us are. That becomes to us our identity. And we need to focus on the fact that we have a completely different identity. Instead of perishable beings in a temporary existence, we are imperishable beings created in God and maturing through this process of life in the flesh so that we will emerge perfected, just like Christ emerged from the flesh perfected as the Son of God who was able to receive all that the Father had.

We are in a process of being renewed into the true knowledge of who we are, and that process may not be easy. In fact, it may even seem impossible. But Yeshua (Jesus) said that what is impossible for us is very possible with God. Therefore, we reach into God and say, “Lord, by Your grace and with Your help, I put on the renewing of my mind to the true knowledge of the being you created in me to dwell with You in eternity. And I believe that I will be able both to lay aside the old and to put on the new.”

Key Verses:

• John 1:12–13. “… born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.”

• Romans 8:29. “He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:50. “Flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God.”

• John 3:3–6. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

• Colossians 3:9–10. “Put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.”

• Mark 10:17–27. “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”

Quotes:

• “This flesh and blood, this body that we know and are so familiar with, will not inherit the Kingdom of God. It does not go forth into the Kingdom of God. There is a transformation that has to take place because the perishable, that which is temporal, that which is non-permanent, has to put on that which is imperishable.”

• “We must grow and mature into that which is eternal—not be looking for what we are right now in flesh and blood to be the focus of our becoming. It is an assistant to us. It is a methodology that God is using to bring us into His perfect will.”

• “This new self is truly you. It is the eternal you. And our knowledge and understanding of that true new self, that true image that was created by Him when we were created, must grow in us.”

Takeaways:

1. Our experience in this life is that we are eternal beings living momentarily in the non-eternal housing of our fleshly body, surrounded by that which is temporal. The purpose of this experience is to perfect us into the image of God as our Father and us as His children. We are having the same experience Christ had, who as a divine eternal Being was perfected by the things that He suffered during His life in the flesh.

2. Part of the problem with the flesh—this body we are in and the life we are living—is that it becomes the image of ourselves. It becomes the understanding and knowledge of ourselves as to who and what we are. We begin to see ourselves after this perishable image. That is what we relate to. That is what we cling to. That is what we work to try to perfect and grow in. But it clouds the true image of the One who created us as imperishable beings.

3. We know that it is as difficult to lay aside this old self that we are immersed in as it is for a camel to try going through the eye of a needle. We know this is not possible in ourselves. But the promise in God is that we can “put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him.” As divine beings who are only having a temporary human experience, we can lay aside everything of the perishable that we identify with, and we can put on this new self.

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Are you tired of struggling with the flesh and trying to deal continually with all the problems of your human nature? The Scriptures tell us to lay aside the old self and put on the new self. This means that rather than struggling with it, we can simply take off the old nature like a garment and put on the new nature. Let us take faith, with the Lord’s help, to reach into this scriptural truth and get out of this cycle of perpetual struggle in the flesh.

Show Notes: When we read Ephesians 6:12 that our struggle is not against flesh and blood, we normally interpret that in the context of spiritual warfare. In other words, our intercession is to deal with spiritual forces and not with external flesh and blood on a natural level. But we can also apply this Scripture to ourselves internally. We are not to struggle with our own flesh and blood. The reality is that we continually struggle with the problems of our own flesh, and yet the Scriptures tell us that is not the way to deal with those things.

The Lord made this real to me in a recent spiritual experience. I saw myself wearing a heavy coat with all kinds of trash and clutter clinging to it. I understood this clutter to be all the negative things of the flesh—all the negative ways of acting and being and thinking about myself. Instead of focusing on those things and trying to deal with them, I simply took off the coat. This is a key that we read in the Scriptures. We are to lay aside the old self with all its corruption in the flesh and put on the new self that has been created in righteousness and holiness in the image of God.

This is how God deals with your flesh. He is not focused on wrestling with you or arguing with you over your old manner of life. He is setting before you the new life that He has created for you in Christ so that you would lay aside the old self and put on the new self. We are not in a war with ourselves. We are not in a war with God. We simply lay aside the old and have our minds renewed with our focus redirected on Christ. Drop off that old heavy coat with all the fleshly problems attached to it and “put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.”

• Ephesians 4:17–25. “Lay aside the old self … and put on the new self.”

• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself.”

• Ephesians 2:8. “By grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves.”

• Hebrews 12:1–2. “Lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us.”

• Colossians 3:9–10. “You laid aside the old self … and have put on the new self.”

• James 1:21. “Putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted.”

• 1 Peter 2:1–2. “Putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word.”

• Romans 13:14. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

• Galatians 3:27. “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.”

Quotes:

• “We cannot be in a wrestling match with our flesh. We cannot be struggling with the flesh and its issues with the natural man. We must find another way to deal with it.”

• “We go back to grace. We have learned Christ through grace, and we have to go back to the way we learned originally.”

• “We have to take off the old in order to put on the new. And then we will be able to run with endurance this race that is set before us.”

Takeaways:

1. The problems we face that make our walk with God difficult seem to be the same problems over and over again. We focus on dealing with those problems and find ourselves in a continual struggle with the flesh. But the Scriptures show us that is not the way to get rid of those things. Instead of struggling with our flesh, we are to take it off like a coat.

2. Dealing with the flesh is not something we can do for ourselves and by ourselves. It is done by the process of God’s grace in our lives. We simply give it over to Him to deal with. In baptism we washed away the old self, our old manner of life. We simply let it go and left it behind in the water of baptism and were raised up and clothed with Christ.

It is a matter of redirecting our focus. Get out of a wrong focus on the old self and keep your eyes on Yeshua (Jesus), the author and perfector of your faith. God gave us His Son so that we might focus on Him and put Him on. He gave us His Son as the provision. When we put Him on like a new coat, all His provisions become ours so that we no longer make provision for the flesh.

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Web Description: We are praying for Israel during this time. And as we pray, we should also ask ourselves, “Are we being effective?” When we look out on a natural level, are we seeing the truth winning the day in the media and on college campuses? Are we seeing the spiritual forces move in a positive direction toward Israel and away from the forces of evil? Real results on the natural level will occur when our intercession is divinely powerful to tear down the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Show Notes: During this time of Israel’s war with Hamas, many Christians have been in prayer and intercession for Israel. It is very important to be in prayer, but it is also important that our prayers be effective, and we should not be reluctant to ask the Lord how our prayer life could be improved. The disciples did that. When Yeshua (Jesus) cured a man’s son of seizures after they had failed, they asked Him why they could not drive out the demon as He had done. We too should learn from our mistakes and become better equipped to accomplish what we want to accomplish by our prayers.

Our prayers need to be effective because we are looking to see a victory on behalf of Israel to end the problem of Hamas and their determination to annihilate the Jewish state and the Jewish people. No matter how the media want to frame it as Israel’s conflict with the Palestinians, this drive for annihilation is an evil demonic determination going back thousands of years. This conflict is not a struggle with flesh and blood on a natural level; it is being driven by spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. Therefore, our prayers need to be effective against these spiritual forces.

Paul wrote that our weapons are not fleshly but divinely powerful for the destruction of the fortresses that are built on speculations raised up against the knowledge of God. People today are being motivated to attack the Jewish people through many absurd speculations that war against the knowledge and truth of God. Our intercession must be that which takes all these thoughts captive to the obedience of Christ and executes the judgments written to see the absolute victory over His enemies.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 17:14–21. “The disciples came to Jesus privately and said, ‘Why could we not drive it out?’”

• Ephesians 6:10–18. “Our struggle is … against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness.”

• 2 Corinthians 10:2–6. “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

• John 16:7–11. “The ruler of this world has been judged.”

• Daniel 7:21–22. “Judgment was passed in favor of the saints of the Highest One.”

• Psalm 149:1–9. “… to execute on them the judgment written.”

Quotes:

• “This determination for annihilation, this Islamic Jihad, is born of satan and is demonic in its origins. And I believe that only judgment is going to bring a solution to it.”

• “The greatest way that we can assist as believers is through effective intercession to bring down these spiritual forces of darkness, which are behind everything that is transpiring on a natural level.”

• “We're to move in this righteousness of God, which brings the execution of the judgment that has already been determined against these spiritual forces. And we are the ones that execute those judgments.”

Takeaways:

1. We are up against the rulers, the powers, the world forces of darkness, the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. We cannot simply deal with things on a natural level and get the results that we are looking for. We must be able as believers by the power of God, by the Holy Spirit to move in a level of prayer and intercession that is divine in its power and anointing to tear down these spiritual forces.

2. Our intercession must be a weapon that is not fleshly. Our prayers need to be destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. Just look at how people are moved by speculations and lofty thoughts raised up against the truth of God in Christ. Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ is what we need to be doing through the power of our intercession.

3. The judgments against satan and the spiritual force of wickedness have already been determined. As humans, we are not entering into judgment. We are establishing that the judgments won by Christ at the cross are being enforced. It is not enough to have a decree of judgment. It is only effective when it is executed. And that is what is necessary now.

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Web Description: Hanukkah means dedication. The Feast of Dedication celebrates the rededication of the Temple and the vessels of Temple worship after they had been defiled. We could relate to Hanukkah as a mere historical event that is outside of ourselves. But I feel that the Lord is moving on our hearts to apply this feast in a deeper way. Let this Hanukkah celebration be about rededicating ourselves as the temple of God and as the instruments that serve Him.

Show Notes: The Feast of Dedication is all about the fact that the implements of worship in the Temple had been used in unholy sacrifices and therefore were unclean. The Jews had to rebuild the altar, rebuild the menorah, and remake the implements that were used for the sacrificial offerings in the Temple. All these things had to be purified, sanctified, and dedicated again to the Lord for the service of worship. We cannot think of Hanukkah as anything less than purifying ourselves and sanctifying our lives back into the service of God.

The Jews back then had to separate themselves from the Gentile worship that had polluted the Temple. It had polluted the city of Jerusalem and it had polluted many people who found themselves living according to a culture that God was not in favor of because it was not sanctified to Him. We also must realize that we are to put away everything surrounding us that is unclean. We do not give ourselves to it. We do not welcome it in our hearts and lives. We want to be welcomed by the Father. We want Him to call us His sons and daughters. We want Him to indwell us and use us in serving Him and ministering to the world.

God has always worked through His people to accomplish His will and His purpose in the earth. And He wants to work through us in this generation. As believers in Christ, we come to this time of Hanukkah and dedicate ourselves back to Him in every area where we have not had the sanctification that we need in our hearts and in our lives. We seek Him to rebuild us, spirit, soul, and body into that temple in which He can dwell and be the instruments that He can use.

Key Verses:

• John 10:22–24. “The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; … and Jesus was walking in the temple.”

• Romans 12:1. “Present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, … your spiritual service of worship.”

• 1 Corinthians 6:19–20. “Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit …: therefore glorify God in your body.”

• 1 Corinthians 3:16–17. “The temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.”

• 2 Corinthians 6:14–18. “We are the temple of the living God; … ‘DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN.’”

• Ephesians 2:18–22. “You are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.”

• Jeremiah 31:34. “They will all know Me, … for I will forgive their iniquity.”

Quotes:

• “I want to be confronted by the Holy Spirit in a way that brings me to a thorough repentance, which brings about a rededication of my life in every way under Him.”

• “Get rid of every agreement in your hearts with the idolatry of the age that we live in and sanctify yourself once again unto God. It is the Feast of Dedication.”

• “We want to see Him glorified in our physical body as well as in our spirit so that everything we say, everything we do is worship and service to God.”

Takeaways:

1. To rededicate the Temple, they had to sanctify the implements of worship. We also have to sanctify our hands, our mouths, our feet, and our whole bodies to the Lord so that we are purified and fit for the Master's use. They had to rebuild the altar with new stones. And we need to take the new stones of the Word of God and rebuild our lives into what they should be as a sanctuary for His presence. They had to rebuild the menorah. And we should rebuild that which makes us the light to the nations.

2. This is what Hanukkah is all about for us as believers in Christ. It is a time of rededication, not a rededication of something outward, but instead a rededication of our own hearts and lives: spirit, soul, and body to the Lord. In so doing, we make a place on earth for Him to dwell and become sanctified so that He might use us according to His will.

3. As Christians we think in terms of the Church. But from the Day of Pentecost until now, the entire purpose of God in pouring out His Spirit on individuals was to make us His dwelling place. The Body of Christ is not about church. It is about being individuals who are the temple of God, cleansed and dedicated so that He may dwell in us.

Resources:

Eight Reasons for Christians to Celebrate Hanukkah – Episode 16

Hanukkah—Do Not Be Conformed to the World – Episode 122

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Web Description: We know we live in a world that is under futility. We also believe in God’s promised release from it. Therefore, we seem to be in a continual war with futility, struggling to overcome it. But we need to realize that we are not fighting futility; we are dealing with the root of futility, which is our separation from God. Christ came to end that separation and restore us to a oneness with the Father. This is the promise of our salvation in Christ and this is what we exercise.

Show Notes: We live in a world that is surrounded by futility. Futility is what makes things deteriorate and disintegrate. It is what brings old age and all kinds of negative aspects to our lives. We are in a daily war with futility. And because we believe the promise in Romans 8 of being delivered from futility, we have prayed against it, we have prophesied against it, and we have talked about how to see an end to it. But I think we need a greater understanding of the roots of futility. It comes down to the simple fact that it is the result of our separation from God.

We read in Genesis how futility came about. Adam and Eve sinned against God and He sent them away from His presence. Then Cain sinned against his brother Abel, and God sent Cain away from His presence. In each case the ground was cursed. We see then how futility is absolutely tied to the reality of separation. Adam and Eve were separated from God. Cain was separated from God. And the earth was doubly cursed because of our sin against God and our sin against one another.

We therefore tend to focus on sin in our battle with futility. We think in terms of Yeshua (Jesus) being free from futility because He lived a sinless life. Try thinking of it in different terms: Christ lived a life that was not separated from God. There was no separation between Himself and the Father, and that is why there is no futility in Christ. He also came to reconcile us to the Father and make us one together with Him. By ending our separation from God and from one another, futility will be ended for us, for the earth, and for all creation.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 59:1–2. “Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God.”

• Genesis 3:17–24. “Cursed is the ground because of you.”

• Genesis 4:9–14. “Now you are cursed from the ground.”

• Deuteronomy 31:16–18. “I will surely hide My face in that day because of all the evil which they will do.”

• Romans 8:19–25. “Creation was subjected to futility … in hope.”

• John 17:20–26. “That they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us.”

• Romans 8:28–39. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

Quotes:

• “We live surrounded by futility every day of our life, and the Scriptures have a lot to say about futility. And therefore it's something that we should pursue as believers to find an answer for.”

• “We are surrounded by a world of separation. And that separation itself is the manifestation of the futility that has been brought into this world because of our sin and our disobedience to God and our treatment of one another.”

• “The reason He took Adam and Eve out of the garden was so that things wouldn't get worse. But He's going to cause all things to work together for our good because He's going to get to this purpose, which is the ending of our separation from Him.”

Takeaways:

1. People ask the question, “If God is a good God, then how can we experience negative things in our lives?” The answer to that is simple. We live in a fallen world and we live among a fallen mankind.

2. As a result of mankind’s sin, God cursed the ground and blocked access to eternal life. God did this in hope that we would be released from this futility through Christ. We yearn for that release, but we struggle with how that can come about in our lives.

3. We need to understand that we are not fighting against futility. Futility is the manifestation of our separation from God and that separation ended at the cross. This is the hope that we have through our salvation, and our striving is to enter into the oneness with the Father, with Christ, and with one another.

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Web Description: The Scriptures tell us that the Lord will shake the heavens and the earth and that our God is a consuming fire. These are things that certainly sound frightening, but we get a different picture when we study what these Scriptures are actually saying. For believers the times of shaking are not to be lived in fear but to be lived in expectation as the Lord establishes His Kingdom. These will be days of preparation when God’s consuming fire burns away our limitations and brings deliverance for His people.

Show Notes: The Scriptures describe a great shaking that occurs in the end-time. Luke 21 records the terrifying events that Yeshuah (Jesus) prophesied will happen as the powers of the heavens are shaken. In Hebrews 12 we read that God will shake the heavens and the earth. But that is not the emphasis of these Scriptures. According to Luke 21, this time of shaking means that our redemption is drawing near. And Hebrews 12 is all about our preparation as God’s sons who will receive His unshakeable Kingdom.

The verses in Hebrews 12 speak specifically to our preparation as believers in our walk with the Lord. Whether we are in the end-time or not, we need to be prepared. We are to strengthen ourselves by the great cloud of witnesses who died in the faith and by the heavenly forces that surround us. We are to be growing. We are to let the Father discipline us for our good, knowing that He loves us. We are to follow Christ in whatever we would suffer just as He endured the suffering He went through for our salvation.

We want to be prepared to walk through these days so that we are not like those who are filled with fear and trembling at what is happening on the earth. Instead, we will straighten up and look into the heavens to observe God exerting His authority and establishing His Kingdom. These are days that we have waited for. Whatever may be a source of fear and trembling for others, for God's people these are days of deliverance and salvation. These are days when the fiery presence of God will burn away our cords and bondages, setting us free from everything that have held us back, and enabling us to walk in the time of fulfillment.

Key Verses:

• Mark 13:32. “Of that day or hour no one knows.”

• Hebrews 12:1–17. “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”

• John 8:36. “If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.”

• Hebrews 5:8. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

• Hebrews 12:18–24. “You have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God.”

• Hebrews 12:25-29. “I WILL SHAKE NOT ONLY THE EARTH, BUT ALSO THE HEAVEN.”

• Ephesians 6:10–13. “… having done everything, to stand firm.”

• Luke 21:25–28. “The powers of the heavens will be shaken.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:25. “He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”

• Daniel 3:13–25. “I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm.”

Quotes:

• “We need to recognize that part of what we will go through and experience is the discipline of the Lord upon us.”

• “We are to be looking at Yeshua and what He did, what He lived through, what he suffered in going to the cross. He despised the shame of it, but He endured it. And we will endure that which we have to endure as God's sons in these days.”

• “It is truly a day of deliverance, a day of fulfillment. It's the day that our hearts have believed for, cried for, and waited for. And so we should go through them as days of fulfillment.”

Takeaways:

1. The beginning of Hebrews 12 deals with us individually, how we walk, how we are related to those in the cloud of witnesses and the angelic forces that are strengthening us, and how we are always looking to Christ as our example. As Christ did, we may suffer persecution and other hardships. But we do that without losing heart and without fainting. We also recognize that we will go through times when the Father is disciplining us because he is making us grow and bringing us into a place of walking with Him as sons.

2. We are facing the time when God will shake all the heavens because the heavenly forces impact the earth and in fact have authority in many phases over the earth. There are spiritual forces that must be broken for the Kingdom of God to manifest. We know that this will greatly affect the world we live in, but we are not to be fearful. We are to stand. We are to be prepared for these things.

3. Our God is a consuming fire. For us, that is a place of safety in His presence and it is what burns away the cords that have held us in bondage. And while we are in that place of His fiery presence, there is always someone standing with us. Yeshua the Messiah comes and is with us in all that we go through.

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Web Description: At the end of every year, whether it is by making resolutions or having parties, we try to cope with our anxiety over the fact that we do not know what the new year will bring, and we have absolutely no control over it. I want to have a different approach this year. I want the Scriptures to minister an assurance and a faith that carries us through into the future. We do not control it, but God does. And we know that in Christ He will freely give us everything we need to go through the days ahead.

Show Notes: It can be hard for us as humans to face a new year, not knowing what that new year will bring to us. It confronts the part of us that does not like to feel out of control or unsure of things. The fact that we cannot know or control our future is kind of scary for us. But the Scriptures can give us a sense of certainty and hope as we anticipate the new year. We may not know what will happen from day to day; we may not be in control; but we do know the things that are established for us in the Word of God.

We read in Jeremiah that God has a plan for our welfare to give us a future and a hope. We are not in this world with no plan. According to Romans 8, God has predestined us to be conformed to the image of His Son. What better plan could there be for our lives? Therefore, we know one thing with certainty about what will happen in the coming year. We will become more and more like Yeshua (Jesus). This next year we will be in a process of being conformed to His image.

Live according to His Word. You may face difficulties. But trust that you are called according to His purpose, and He will cause all things to work for your good. You may face persecution. But who can bring a charge against God’s elect since God is the one who justifies? This age may try to come against you, but God is the One who is for you. Who then can effectively come against you? Read and study these Words from God until they are so real in your heart that nothing can cause you to let go of them as you move through this year.

Key Verses:

• Ecclesiastes 8:7. “If no one knows what will happen, who can tell him when it will happen?”

• Proverbs 27:1. “Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring forth.”

• James 4:13–15. “You do not know what your life will be like tomorrow.”

• Romans 8:28–31. “God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God.”

• 1 John 4:17. “As He is, so also are we in this world.”

• John 17:22. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them.”

• Romans 8:32–39. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?”

• Jeremiah 29:11. “I know the plans that I have for you … to give you a future and a hope.”

Quotes:

• “We may not know the future. But God does. He has this year planned out for you. And it's filled with hope. It's filled with His presence, His glory.”

• “We may face difficult days. We may face difficult months. But He is with us. He has called us. And His glory is resting upon us and moving within us as we are being conformed to the image of the Son.”

• “Sit and wait upon the Lord until His love for you is something that just blows you away, and it is without question in your heart and mind that He loves you.”

Takeaways:

1. The Scriptures point to the fact that we cannot predict future events or think we can know what a day will bring. But that does not mean we are to be fearful of the future. The Word also expresses the reality of what we have in God and what His plan is for us. Therefore, we can look forward with hope and certainty to a future that He has created for us.

2. Many times we are faced with fear and concern for a new year because we do not know what it holds. So we try to party away whatever fears we might have. But read Romans 8:38–39. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ. Nothing! Those verses are better than any resolution we can make or any party we can throw to try to make ourselves feel good about the coming year.

3. How do we want to begin this new year? We begin it with a focus on the Lord. We bring our lives before Him and say, “You are the Lord. You are the King. You are the One who is in control of our lives. We dedicate our lives to You. We dedicate each day to You for Your will for us, Your will for this planet, and Your Kingdom on this earth.” That is how we approach this new year.

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Growing In God Podcast

Web Description: As the year comes to an end, we look back on all that happened in 2023 and look forward to everything God has in store for us in 2024. The efforts this past year to improve our website have already increased the ministry of the Word and our ongoing support of Israel and the Jewish people, and we anticipate an even greater growth in the coming year. Our prayer is that Hargrave Ministries will be a great blessing to the Body of Christ this year as we grow in God together and become His expression in the world.

Show Notes: 2023 was a year of tremendous growth for Hargrave Ministries. This past year saw a major focus on rebuilding the Hargrave Ministries website. In this process we fixed several problems and made the website more functional for our needs. This has enabled us to add our new partnership plan called Fellow Workers, which lets contributors unlock access to regular Zoom meetings and other content. We are also posting video interviews with people in Israel to provide a true perspective of what is happening there in contrast to the disinformation from media sources.

Probably the greatest thing about the improvements to the website is that it is a better platform to make Scriptural teaching available to anyone who is desirous of it. As the book of Acts expresses, we want to see the Word of the Lord multiply, grow mightily, and prevail in the earth. And as believers in Yeshua (Jesus) we also must be growing and maturing in our understanding and application of the Scriptures. The name of our podcast is Growing in God, and the podcasts, blogs, and study guides, which are added weekly and monthly to the website, teach on this need to grow up in all aspects into Christ and mature in the things of God.

Another focus of the teaching is our connection to Israel and our Jewish roots and combatting anti-Semitism, which is more important than ever. If you have visited our website, you know of our drive to bless Israel, the people of Israel, and the Jewish people in the world. We continue to support Israel through the charitable organizations that we contribute to monthly, and the website provides a way for others to contribute to these organizations as well. So please visit www.hargraveministries.org and see what is there. And join with us this new year to help see the Word of God strengthen and grow throughout the earth.

Key Verses:

• 2 Peter 3:18. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

• 1 Peter 2:2. “Long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow.”

• Luke 2:39–40. “The Child continued to grow and become strong, increasing in wisdom.”

• Luke 2:52. “Jesus kept increasing in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”

• Ephesians 4:11–16. “We are to grow up in all aspects into Him.”

• Colossians 3:16. “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you.”

• Acts 12:24. “But the word of the Lord continued to grow and to be multiplied.”

• Acts 19:20. “The word of the Lord was growing mightily and prevailing.”

• Isaiah 40:1. “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.”

• Zechariah 1:12–17. “The Lord will again comfort Zion and again choose Jerusalem.”

• Zechariah 2:10–12. “The Lord will possess Judah as His portion in the holy land, and will again choose Jerusalem.”

• Isaiah 51:1-3. “Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion.”

Quotes:

• “We should keep increasing. We should keep growing up in wisdom, in stature, certainly in favor with God and with man.”

• “We are in the time when I believe the change is happening and the time of Scriptural blessing is ready to be released upon Israel.”

• “We live at a time when the Word of God needs to be prevailing within society.”

Takeaways:

1. As Paul wrote to the Ephesians, we are to grow and mature until we become like Christ. We are to come to a unity of faith and a knowledge of the Son of God. This expresses our drive at Hargrave Ministries to grow and mature in our seeking after the Lord, in our reading of the Scriptures, in our prayer life, and in our waiting on the Lord.

2. Yeshua came and included us as Gentiles to be reconciled to God. As believers in Yeshua we were born into this relationship through the faith of Abraham with God’s people. According to Paul, that is our connection. Therefore a major drive at Hargrave Ministries is for Christians to know their connection with Israel and the Jewish people.

3. The Body of Christ must be combatting anti-Semitism and blessing the Jewish people. We know that down through history God disciplined His children. But the nations have gone overboard in their anger and they have created a disaster For the Jewish people, for Jerusalem, and for Israel as a nation. Now we are seeing this begin to change, and we want to be on the right side of history as those who are participating with God in blessing Israel.

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Web Description: There is a great deal of debate concerning Christmas. Why is it celebrated? When should it be celebrated? Should it be celebrated at all? In this podcast, rather than attempt to unravel all the doctrinal and scheduling dilemmas surrounding Christmas, I want to talk about its real purpose. Christmas is all about the love of God manifesting to humanity. The coming of Christ into the world is God manifesting His love in us. There is no more perfect gift that can be given for Christmas.

Show Notes: What is Christmas all about? First and foremost, the birth of Yeshua (Jesus) is about God sending His Son into the earth. But we get so caught up in what the celebration of Christmas is supposed to be, what church is supposed to be, and what religion is supposed to be, that we lose sight of exactly why we are celebrating Yeshua’s being born. Very simply, God was manifesting His love within a human so that we as humans could find a way to open up and receive God’s love in us.

God wants us to know the love He has for each one of us as individuals. It is easy to get lost in the big picture of God doing something for the whole world. But by the gift of His Son, the Father manifested His love in you personally. In Christ, God is driven to get every human to know and feel and recognize and celebrate His love. When we know God, we will love. And that is a big part of what God was doing in the birth of Yeshua. If He can get us to see His love for us, then He can make us become love just as He is love. That means love for ourselves and love for one another.

If you celebrate Christmas as the time when Yeshua was born, then remember the purpose of that event. As you exchange gifts, remember that the greatest gift was God manifesting His love in a human being. That is what the world needs right now. We are losing the love for one another. We are seeing the opposite of love in the destructive actions toward ourselves and toward one another. There is only one way to stop that trend, and that is by opening our hearts to receive how much God loves us. Loving yourself and loving others will not be a challenge when you really receive the love that God has for you.

Key Verses:

• 1 John 4:9. “By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son.”

• 1 John 4:7–11. “The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.”

• 1 John 4:12–21. “We love, because He first loved us.”

• Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

• Ephesians 3:16–19. “Know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.”

• John 3:16. “God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Quotes:

• “If you're celebrating the birth of Christ, then you're celebrating the manifestation of God's love in us.”

• “What is sin? It's separation from God. But it's deeper than that. It's separation from His love for us.”

• “What is eternal life? The love of God is eternal life. Because God is love and that is eternal.”

Takeaways:

1. As we give ourselves to this season, let us remember that it was because of God's great love that Yeshua was sent to this earth. He came to be the expression of God's love to each of us individually. God is driven for us to know and experience His love for us. And the greatest celebration of Christmas would be us opening our hearts to know and receive and experience the love of God.

2. Since no man has seen God, and we cannot relate to Him easily, God sent His love packaged in Christ. If we receive Him, we are receiving the love of God so that we may be filled up to the fullness of God, just as Christ was the fullness of God in man.

3. Read John 17. What made Yeshua and the Father one? The love that the Father had for Him and the love He had for the Father is what welded them into oneness. And because of that love we have the ability to be one. The one who abides in love abides in God. And Christ and the Father will come and take their abode in us because we finally come into the revelation of His love for us.

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Web Description: When it comes to anti-Semitism, the global community must come together and realize what it is they are allowing and promoting. When people protesting in the name of Palestine declare, “From the river to the sea,” they are declaring the destruction of the Jewish state and the Jewish people. That is the real issue. And my prayer for the nations is that they finally have the determination, once and for all, to do away with this evil demonic intent for the annihilation of the Jews.

Show Notes: After the horrific terrorist attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023, the world has witnessed a shocking increase in anti-Semitism. It is a serious problem that many nations have been struggling to deal with. But if you want to solve a problem, you first have to define the problem. The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), for one, has adopted a definition of anti-Semitism to help countries solve this global issue. However, when you look at the horrors committed by Hamas against innocent Israeli citizens on October 7, you have to realize that we are dealing with acts that go way beyond anti-Semitism.

What is really happening needs to be defined for what it is. It is the determination for annihilation. What we are really dealing with is a longstanding determination and dedication to destroy the State of Israel and to annihilate all Jews, wherever they reside. This determination is manifesting now through Hamas. But it has manifested in many different forms throughout history, from Haman’s decree to annihilate all Jews in the Persian Empire in 474 BCE to the Holocaust in the 1930s and ‘40s.

“Never again!” expresses the determination never to repeat the Holocaust, which many nations have supposedly subscribed to. Yet when Israel begins to defend itself against the spirit of annihilation, suddenly the cries of “never again” seem to get drowned out by the noise of the cries against Israel. If the international community or the UN or the Arab nations are serious about ending this conflict, then they need to rally around this point: this philosophy of annihilation is a lie out of the pit of hell, and there must be an absolute stopping and disallowance of it in all of its aspects.

Key Verses:

• Esther 3:13–15. “Letters were sent … to kill and to annihilate all the Jews.”

Quotes:

• “No matter what's going on with Israel, the world and the nations of the world feel like they have to be involved, and they have to be demanding what transpires and what the outcomes are and what things are to be done.”

• “If you won't honestly define the problem, you're never going to come to a solution.”

• “I guarantee you that a two-state solution is never going to work as long as the true underlying issue is the annihilation of the Jewish people.”

Takeaways:

1. We cannot just try to solve the issues of anti-Semitism. We need to address the systems of belief that all Jews must be annihilated. That is the actual spirit behind the current situation with Hamas and Gaza. Something has to take the nations to task on this issue: it is absolutely unacceptable to have a belief system that the Jews are a global problem that can only be solved by their annihilation.

2. Any lie will do and any excuse will do when it comes to this drive for the annihilation of the Jewish people. Those who are dedicated to that annihilation will come up with any story and any lie that gets traction and can be used to excuse what they are doing to destroy Israel and destroy the Jewish people.

3. All the nations right now are clamoring for a ceasefire in Gaza and are telling Israel what needs to be done. They are convinced that all their input must be observed by Israel. This includes the United States, which pressures Israel for different aspects of the situation to be handled in the way the US government sees fit. But the problem remains that if you refuse to recognize this conflict as an issue of annihilation, you will not be able to find honest solutions for it.

Resources:

Yardena Schwartz: October 7 Happened Before, in Hebron

IHRA

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Web Description: The Bible speaks clearly of a war that takes place against evil. We see this happening before our eyes as Israel defends itself against an attack of unimaginable evil by Hamas. As Christians, we should be a voice to the world so that they can recognize that evil does exist and that it must be dealt with. In addition, we must be spiritually and physically helping Israel in this war against evil.

Show Notes: The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Matthew 13 speaks very distinctly to the fact that there is evil in the world that must be removed. This occurs at the end of the age when the Lord sends His angels to gather up the tares—the seeds of wickedness and evil planted by satan—and burn them with fire. The reality is that evil exists in the world, and you cannot hope, as some do, that evil will simply go away. You are going to have to deal with it.

We are witnessing before our eyes the growth of evil in the earth and our struggle against it. The war right now that Israel is engaged in against Hamas is a war against evil. What Hamas did on October 7, 2023, to innocent Israelis along the Gaza border was absolute evil and wickedness beyond words, beyond human emotion, beyond what could be done by normal people. Yet many today refuse to condemn Hamas, even justifying their actions, and instead blame Israel.

We are seeing college students, liberal institutions, and the world at large refusing to acknowledge evil for what it is. But within the Body of Christ there must be a moral clarity. We have been delivered from the domain of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s Son and our eyes should be opened to know what we are contending with. We are to put on the full armor of God so that we can stand against these forces of evil and wickedness. So I encourage you to find a way to be a part of this war against evil. Pray and have faith to release into the field the angels of God who root out the wickedness. But also comfort Israel and the Jewish people and help give to their needs during this time.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 13:36–43. “Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age.”

• Ephesians 6:12–13. “Take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day.”

• Acts 26:17–18. “Open their eyes so that they may turn from … the dominion of Satan to God.”

• Colossians 1:13–14. “He rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son.”

• Genesis 6:3–8. “The LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth.”

• Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.”

• Isaiah 40:1. “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.”

Quotes:

• “The war against Hamas and all Islamic cults which are dedicated to a doctrine of annihilation is in fact a war against pure evil.”

• “There is evil. There is wickedness. There is that which comes to the point of wickedness that God Himself will root it out and do away with it.”

• “There are orphans now that are being created by the events of this war and certainly were created by the atrocities of October 7th, where whole families were killed. But at times mothers and fathers were killed right in front of their children.”

Takeaways:

1. We should be believing and contending for the divine intervention of angelic forces to bundle the tares and root them out of the earth so that righteousness might manifest itself and the sons of God might be manifested in the earth—so that those who are giving themselves to the will of God and the Kingdom of God might clearly be revealed in the world.

2. We relate to the salvation experience as the forgiveness of sins. But it is greater than that. It is being freed from the dominion of satan and having our eyes opened so that we would turn away from darkness. Being delivered from the forces of evil is a very real thing that we as believers must experience. And at some point, the world itself must have this release from evil.

3. The biblical command to comfort God’s people is something that the Church and Gentiles should be doing right now. It is important to not only pray for Israel but also provide for the physical needs of the people. This is a major focus of Hargrave Ministries, and we give regularly to charitable organizations in Israel that are meeting those needs. These are organizations that we have a relationship with and trust. And we provide links to these organizations on our website so that anyone can give to Israel through them.

Give Now:

Hargrave Ministries – Help Israel Now

Hargrave Ministries – Israel Projects

Hargrave Ministries – Interviews from Israel

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Web Description: Like every year, we can celebrate Hanukkah with joy and light the candles for eight days. But this year on Israel’s 75th anniversary, let us see the restoration of the light that Israel is to be to the world. As believers in Christ, we rally around Israel for all that she needs and all that she is to be. We add our strength, our faith, our finances, and all that we can to be a blessing to Israel and to the Jewish people during this time of rededicating our lives to God.

Show Notes: Hanukkah, or the Feast of Dedication, commemorates the time when the Temple and the vessels of the Temple worship were cleansed, sanctified, and rededicated to the worship of the Lord after they had been defiled. The Jews retook the Temple in the Maccabean Revolt, but they had to rebuild and consecrate the sacred things in order to restore the worship and the relationship to God that had been destroyed by those who had overtaken the land. Hanukkah therefore celebrates the rededicating of our lives to God in our service to Him as vessels fit for the Master's use.

This feast has special significance for 2023 because this year Israel is celebrating its 75th anniversary. We cannot emphasize enough the importance of Israel’s existence as a state. Number one, it is the fulfillment of God’s covenant with His people. But also, as we have seen in recent events, without a Jewish state that houses and protects them, the Jewish people once again face the threat against their very lives. That is why the rededication expressed in Hanukkah is so important for them this year. After 75 years they are seeing much of the values that built the State of Israel being eroded.

Israel was built on the dedication of its people who had only one focus, and that was to form the Jewish state where the Jewish people could survive the obvious determination of the world to see their destruction. But in Israel today, just as in America, we are seeing people forgetting the lessons of history and tearing down the very principles that framed the nation in the first place. Let us believe for a rededication to the sacred values built upon the Word of God that are at the root of Israel and of our connection to them as Christians.

Key Verses:

• John 10:22–24. “The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; … and Jesus was walking in the temple.”

• 2 Timothy 2:21. “If anyone cleanses himself from these things, he will be a vessel for honor, sanctified, useful to the Master.”

Quotes:

• “I believe that we are seeing something interesting happening; and that is that after the passage of a great amount of time, you lose the significance of that which is sacred, that which is holy.”

• “There needs to be a reeducation of the youth of Israel, the youth of America, and the youth of all nations into the Judeo-Christian values that have been the core, that have established these great nations before God.”

• “We need to rededicate, number one, our own hearts to God. We need to rebuild the sacred things within our own hearts and spirits. We need to regenerate the love in our hearts for one another.”

Takeaways:

1. When the Jews took the Temple in the Maccabean Revolt, they rebuilt the altar; they rebuilt the menorah; they rebuilt most of the sacred implements. All of these things were recreated and rededicated so that they were fit for the service of worship. This is where we get the idea of rededication, which really is what Hanukkah is known for now.

2. One thing that has always tied America and Israel together is the Judeo-Christian values that have been at the core of our culture and laws. There must be a rededication to these sacred values that are built upon the worship of God, the Word of God, the love of God, and the love of our fellow man.

3. Not only do we celebrate the 75th anniversary of Israel, but we set a course for the next 75 years of her history. There must be a reeducation of the younger generations into why there is a State of Israel and why it is necessary, not only for the Jewish people, but also for the nations of the world. Those lessons of history must be retaught.

Resources:

Eight Reasons for Christians to Celebrate Hanukkah – Episode 16

Hanukkah—Do Not Be Conformed to the World – Episode 122

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Web Description: Jonah would rather have died than to let go of his anger that God would have compassion on Nineveh. We must not allow such a hardness to enter our hearts, especially as we expect to see the judgments of God on the wicked in this day. Our hearts must express God’s compassion rather than the anger, the violence, and the judgmental spirits of this age.

Show Notes: Can God get angry? Of course. Does He decree judgments on people with whom He is angry? Absolutely! However, that does not mean He necessarily remains angry or executes fully and completely the results of that anger, even if He proclaimed those results. We have proof of this in the book of Jonah. God declared through Jonah that Nineveh would be destroyed because of its evil. When the people of Nineveh repented, God’s anger abated and the destruction that He Himself decreed did not happen. Then God had to deal with the fact that Jonah could not control his anger.

Jonah’s anger and personal desire to see judgment made it impossible for him to accept God’s compassion for the people of Nineveh. He engaged in the same thoughts and feelings as the age in which he lived, and God dealt with him. We can see the anger and rage being expressed in this age, along with the resulting violence. But if we feel that God’s promised judgments give us license to engage in those same feelings and thoughts, or if we are unable to accept God’s compassion on people, then God will deal with us as well.

As a believer you cannot have the same spirit that is in the world. You are not dealing with your own personal feelings about others. You are dealing with the laws of God that are set in motion, and when you judge you are setting something in motion that you may not be able to get out from under. Whatever you are feeling, stop and disconnect from this world. Get out of the thinking, the acting, the feelings, and the emotions of this age and be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Spend some time with the Lord and sort out your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions before Him.

Key Verses:

• Jonah 3:6–10. “Call on God earnestly that each may turn from his wicked way and from the violence.”

• Jonah 4:1–4. “The LORD said, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry?’”

• Jonah 4:5–11. “Then God said to Jonah, ‘Do you have good reason to be angry?’”

• Luke 6:36–38. “By your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”

• Matthew 12:33–37. “Every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it.”

• Genesis 4:7. “If you do well, will not your countenance be lifted up?”

• Romans 12:2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Quotes:

• “Thoughts can be controlled by our mind. And therefore, our mind is capable of changing the thoughts in our brain, which is capable of changing the emotions, which is capable of changing the actions that are happening.”

• “We are in a time when God is working with His people and His Body. And I think He's working with our attitudes. I think He's working with our thoughts, with our emotions, with our judgments.”

• “If you're out there judging, don't think you're going to get away with it. Don't think you're not going to face it. Don't think it's not going to come back around.”

Takeaways:

1. There is a lot of thinking in the Church that people are in a state that is irredeemable, and that God’s judgments are irreversible. I want us to be careful because we are in the same situation Jonah was in with Nineveh. God was angry with the people of Nineveh. But when they repented, His anger ceased, and He did not do what Jonah prophesied. This made Jonah very angry. Will we too be angry if God’s compassion does not produce the judgment we want to see happen?

2. In social media today we find a tremendous expression of outrage, anger, and division. People may feel like it is nothing more than comments, just expressing opinions, but we know that speech is an expression of what is in the heart of man. As Christians we need to examine our hearts. Are our words rooted in the love of God for mankind or in the anger, hatred, and unforgiveness that is overtaking the world?

3. We should be the voice saying, “Yes, God can withdraw his burning anger.” But we had better get rid of what He is angry about. And I do not see how we, as believers, can be looking at the judgments that are to come on the world and look at an angry God coming to the earth and think that He is not angry at us if the same things exist in our own hearts.

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Web Description: “Why are you angry?” That is the question God asked Cain. And that question applies very much to this generation. Why are people so angry? Why is there so much rage and violence and killing? The reason is the same as when God told Cain he had to master sin. Cain had to control what was in him before it became sin, and the same is true for us. We have the ability. We have the responsibility. And we must master whatever is in our hearts before it manifests in a destructive way.

Show Notes: Cain was angry with his brother Abel, and God warned him that sin was crouching at the door, but he must master it. In other words, it was within Cain’s ability to prevent the sin by dealing with his feelings before they manifested in a physical action. We know from the story that Cain did not do that, and he murdered his brother. This progression of anger and hatred from the mind into expressions of speech and ultimately into physical actions is the way of Cain that Jude prophesied would be a hallmark of the end-time.

Today we see the way of Cain at work in our society more than ever. Whether it is on the internet, TV, radio, or basically any mode of communication, we find tremendous expressions of anger, division, and the revilement of others. Also, throughout every age group, we are seeing all types of violence that result in death. All this is directly tied to the excusing of our violent expression, which absolutely is not in line with the biblical commandment to control it at the outset.

As a society, and especially as Christians, we need to back up and recognize that just as God told Cain, we have the ability to stop the sin before it enters our brains and comes out through our speech and our actions. We understand that spiritual forces are involved in controlling and influencing human actions. Nevertheless, what goes on in the spirit realm does not release us from the responsibility that we have for our own actions. We need to recognize how our thoughts, our minds, our mouths, and our behaviors are our responsibility to deal with.

Key Verses:

• Genesis 4:3–7. “Cain became very angry and his countenance fell.”

• Matthew 12:34 (KJV). “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh.”

• Romans 8:5–6. “The mind set on the flesh is death.”

• Galatians 5:19–21. “The deeds of the flesh are evident.”

• Jude 1:8–11. “Woe to them! For they have gone the way of Cain.”

Quotes:

• “It's almost like the world wants you to feel like this is unstoppable; this is uncontrollable. ‘I can't control my emotions. I'm sorry, I just have to respond with road rage. I just have to respond with violence. I have to respond with this anger, and I'm right in doing so.’”

• “When you hear the words coming out of your mouth—when you hear the words coming out of somebody else's mouth—that are being the expression of judgments, of anger, of hatred, of division, somehow it's the last hope to catch it and say, ‘I've got to stop this.’”

• “There was a control that Michael exercised, which he had the ability to exercise. And so does mankind have the ability to exercise through our mind the authority over the thoughts and over the emotions that we excuse for controlling us.”

Takeaways:

1. What is the way of Cain? For some reason Cain was upset and due to whatever was going on in his mind that turned to emotions of anger. He then refused to have his mind reel in those thoughts and change those emotions. Finally, he voiced it out of his mouth to his brother and ended up releasing the physical actions that killed Abel.

2. Everywhere you turn today, out of people’s mouths is coming so much anger, hatred, and division. That is very concerning because what came out of Cain's mouth was the last step in the progression that took place before he killed his brother Abel. Once you have killed your brother, you cannot bring him back. And I feel that this society is teetering on the edge of actions that will be irretrievable.

3. God told Cain, in effect, “If you do well, you can stop this. Your mind has the ability to stop the thoughts and control what comes out of your mouth. And it can ultimately control the physical actions before they take place.” Let us pray and believe to see a reversal of this trend toward destruction and end the way of Cain in our generation.

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Web Description: For the most part, we do not like being confronted about things we lack or need to work on in our lives. But a confrontation can be helpful. After seeing Christ transformed, Peter, James, and John were confronted by their own inability to heal someone. And the truth is that we are confronted daily by our inability to do the works that Christ said we are to do. We can choose to explain that away, or we can let it show us what we need to seek Him for and press into it.

Show Notes: Peter, James, and John were with Yeshua (Jesus) on the mountain when He was transfigured or, in another sense, transmuted into the form He had with the Father before He took on human form. The three disciples witnessed this, just as Christ had told them that they would see Him coming in His Kingdom. When these disciples came down from the mountain, they were faced with a sharp contrast between this revelation of the Kingdom and the application of it in the natural realm. The disciples were unable to heal as Christ expected them to.

This was a tremendous comparison that is very applicable to us today. The disciples saw the absolute difference between the level they were on and the level Christ was on in His relationship with the Father. And we live daily with this same comparison. We are to have a relationship with Christ and the Father in the Spirit. Yet we tend to think that the way we function in the natural realm is normal, whereas the spirit realm is something we cannot explain or relate to or participate in. In contrast, the Scriptures tell us that we are born again of the Spirit to walk and function in the spirit realm.

We need an honest comparison rather than making excuses or trying to explain away what we read in the Word. Let us examine ourselves and ask: What are we not moving in that we as believers should be able to move in? We have been baptized into the same Spirit that empowered the apostles to heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons. And it is good to take a moment to evaluate where we are by comparison. Certainly, there are things that we already have. But there are still things we need to seek the Lord about rather than feeling like everything is fine the way it is.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 16:28. “Some … will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in His Kingdom.”

• Matthew 17:1–8. “He was transfigured before them.”

• Exodus 33:9–11. “The LORD used to speak to Moses face to face.”

• Exodus 34:30–35. “The skin of Moses’ face shone. So Moses would replace the veil over his face.”

• 2 Corinthians 3:18. “We all, with unveiled face … are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.”

• Matthew 17:9–20. “I brought him to Your disciples, and they could not cure him.”

• John 3:3. “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

• Acts 17:28. “In Him we live and move and exist.”

• 1 John 4:17. “As He is, so also are we in this world.”

• Philippians 3:10. “That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.”

Quotes:

• “To me, my walk with God is not fine the way it is. I need to grow into the things that God has for me. I need an experience like this transmutation that comes into a higher form, a higher element of what God really has available for us.”

• “I'm not saying you're going to walk around in some strange form. You're going to look maybe just like you are right now, but you are going to be in a higher form, moving in elements of God's creation as Christ did.”

• “Don't try to get rid of the littleness of faith. Try to get a belief in the absolute power of the resurrection of Christ that dwells in us.”

Takeaways:

1. Yeshua told the disciples that some of them would not see death until they saw Him coming in His Kingdom. Then three of them saw Christ transmuted into a higher form in an experience known as the Transformation. This revealing of Christ in the form He had before coming out of heaven into earth is what He related to the Kingdom.

2. Immediately after this experience of Christ’s Kingdom, the three disciples who witnessed it were confronted on the natural level by a healing that the disciples were incapable of doing. This was a moment of comparison that we should see as being important for us. It is a good thing for us to evaluate ourselves. We need to evaluate where we are in our walk with the Lord, especially in our ability to live and move in the realm of spirit.

3. The Scriptures tell us we are to walk in the Spirit and by the Spirit and dwell in the Spirit in Him. It is not that we only have a little bit of faith in that. It is that we have absolute belief against it. We believe in the natural world and our physical humanity to such an extent that it is impossible for us to believe in our ability to live in the spirit realm. But we were baptized into His death and raised into His life, and that life dwells in us now. We need to learn to walk in that and live there. That is our reality.

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Web Description: For the children of Israel in the wilderness, there was only one place they could go to pray. Their prayers to God had to happen in the Tent of Meeting in the presence of God. Today we can pray in any physical place we want, but in truth there is a place where we are to go when we pray. That place is the spirit realm where we communicate with God in His presence.

Show Notes: According to the Bible there is a specific place we are to go to pray. This is not something that gets much focus in the Church because we understand that we can pray anywhere we want to—at any place and at any time. But I feel it is wise to open our hearts to the teaching of the Scriptures about prayer and how prayer is to be accomplished. The Scriptures in fact direct us to pray in the Spirit. We are to enter the realm of spirit to engage in prayer.

Moses taught the people, “Don’t just sit in your house. Don't just hang around the camp and pray. Leave where you are, walk to the tent of meeting, and pray where the presence of God is.” Yeshua (Jesus) also taught that we are not to pray where we are seen and heard by others. Instead, we are to go to our inner room, close the door, and pray to God alone in secret. And Paul taught that we are to pray at all times in the Spirit. All these teachings tell us to go to another place to pray. We are not to sit around in the natural level. We are to go to the spiritual level and pray in the presence of God who is Spirit.

It is essential for us to grasp how important it is to exercise our prayer life in the Spirit. We should enter the spirit realm when we pray. When we do not learn how to engage in prayer in the realm of spirit, we are actually losing the power and potential that is the purpose of our prayer. Reject this concept of praying to God as someone separate, in another place than you. In Christ we have the ability and the enabling to come into His presence. We are to commune with the Father and commune with the Son in a world of oneness, and this is where they are beckoning us to come.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 6:18. “Pray at all times in the Spirit.”

• 1 Corinthians 14:13–15. “If I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful.”

• Matthew 6:5–6. “Pray to your Father who is in secret.”

• John 12:26. “Where I am, there My servant will be also.”

• Matthew 17:1–3. “He was transfigured before them.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

• Romans 12:2. “Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

• Exodus 33:7–11. “Everyone who sought the LORD would go out to the tent of meeting.”

Quotes:

• “There is a place of prayer that I believe the Lord has directed. And that place of prayer is in the Spirit.”

• “As we speak into this level of prayer and proclamation from the realm of spirit, that's when things will then change in the natural level.”

• “I want this for the Body of Christ—to enter into His presence and commune rather than to have some prayer that is just an expression of the natural world’s separation from God.”

Takeaways:

1. God has filled us with His Spirit, allowing us to pray in the Spirit in unknown tongues. But also, because we are filled with the Spirit, we have an enabling to enter into the world of spirit. And we must get it clear in our minds that we are to learn how to enter into the world of spirit and function there.

2. Christ came to reconcile us to the Father, which we often focus on as being about the forgiveness of sin. And He did do that. But in doing that He opened the door for us to enter into the presence of the Father, just as Moses entered into the presence of the Father and spoke to Him face to face. If that door was open for Moses, how much more in Christ is it open to us?

3. When we pray, we must first enter into the world of spirit, into the very presence of the Father where Christ dwells. And anytime that we pray just in a natural plane in some other place we are lacking the power of creativity. We are lacking the power to bring about the fulfillment of what we are praying for.

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Web Description: Yeshua (Jesus) told Nicodemus that we must be born of the Spirit. And just as being born in the natural realm means we grow up and learn to function in the natural realm, being born of the Spirit means we grow up and learn to function in the spirit realm. If we are born again then this should be our experience as Christians, but it is clear that we are not walking in and by the Spirit as we should. The time has come, however, to have this experience and we can do it with the help of the Holy Spirit.

Show Notes: The term “born again” is used quite freely within the Church, most often with reference to the initial salvation experience of the believer. Yet when Christ told Nicodemus, “You must be born again,” He was talking about seeing the Kingdom of God and being born of the Spirit. Christ went on to describe a two-step process of being born of water and of the Spirit. As Christians we have been born of water for the cleansing and forgiveness of our sins. But have we really been born of the Spirit, where we walk and live and move in the Spirit of God?

Christ described someone who is born of the Spirit as being like the wind, which by itself cannot be known or perceived on a natural level. Does that describe Christians? Are we really moving in a way that is not known or perceived from a natural level? I think the answer to that question is no. From our initial salvation experience onward, we move and live very much from a natural level and are focused on the natural world. Clearly Christians still move by the flesh, expressing the traits and attributes of the flesh rather than the fruit of the Spirit.

If we are honest, we have to admit that, like the disciples, we are still unable to walk in everything the Lord wants us to walk in. But the promise we have is that the Spirit of truth will guide us into all the truth, and I believe we are in a place to receive things from God that we were unable to receive before. We can open up and walk in the Spirit in a way that we as the Body of Christ have not yet walked. And the Holy Spirit is here to teach us, to train us, and to take us on into this life in the Spirit.

Key Verses:

• John 3:1–7. “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

• John 18:36. “My kingdom is not of this realm.”

• Titus 3:4–6. “He saved us … by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.”

• Ezekiel 36:24–27. “I will cleanse you. … I will put My Spirit within you.”

• John 3:8–12. “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?”

• John 3:13–16. “No one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven.”

• John 12:26. “Where I am, there My servant will be also.”

• Acts 17:28. “In Him we live and move and exist.”

• Galatians 5:14–23. “Walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.”

• John 16:12–15. “You cannot bear them now. But … He will guide you into all the truth.”

Quotes:

• “This spirit realm is something that we are not to just know about. We are to literally engage in it in a real way as we live and walk in the natural realm.”

• “We are able with Christ, through Christ, and through the Holy Spirit to come into this enabling to live, move, and relate in the spirit world.”

• “It is time for us to open up and receive and learn what we have not been able to receive or learn up to this time. But the Holy Spirit is with us and He's here to train us, to teach us, to impart to us.”

Takeaways:

1. I am concerned that we do not stop with a salvation experience that limits or leaves out being born again into the realm of spirit. The fact that we move and live mostly from a natural level in the natural world is in itself a sign that we have not really come into the birth in the Spirit that Christ is referring to.

2. We are in Christ where He is now, but this enabling to live with Him in the spirit realm is something we have not focused on in a way that we should. Just as we had to be born into and grow up in the natural realm, we likewise as believers from the Day of Pentecost were brought into the age of spirit, and we are to grow up and relate to the spirit world.

3. For two thousand years, the Church has been filled with impurities, sensuality, immorality, outbursts of anger, jealousy, and strife. We have not fully reached into the birth in the Spirit that enables us to live in the Spirit and walk by the Spirit. I feel like this is something we need to go back to as believers and really become spiritual beings.

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Web Description: During the assault taking place against Israel, let us pray for divine intervention. We want divine intervention for the hostages. We want divine intervention for the IDF. And we want divine intervention that sees the truth prevail over the lies and disinformation that is being spread in this age.

Show Notes: Now more than ever, Christians must be diligent to pray for and support Israel. This current war is in response to one of the worst attacks against the Israelis in modern history, and it is bringing to light the reality that Israel always faces. Satan is always trying to shove the people of Israel into a corner that is impossible to get out of. We see this in the way that Hamas uses people as human shields, and the media consistently blame Israel regardless of the facts.

The absolute intention of satan is to destroy Israel, and we as Christians need to be engaged in this conflict. We do not engage militarily, but we had better be engaged in the spiritual warfare. The weapons we have are mighty in God for the tearing down of strongholds and the destruction of principalities, powers, and demonic forces. And we need to be exercising these effective tools that God has given us. As watchers on the wall who are reminding the Lord, we are contending to see His divine intervention for Israel at this time.

At Hargrave Ministries we are driven to publish the call for intercession, spread the truth about Israel, and provide material support for the Israeli people. We have recently added two new pages to our website. One page provides links to charity organizations that we have vetted and have a relationship with. We know that our contributions to these organizations go to help those in need in Israel. The second page will include interviews and videos that present the truth about the history of Israel and the facts of what is happening there. Please visit our site and join with us in our faith for God’s Words over Israel to be fulfilled.

Key Verses:

• Psalm 91:1–16. “He will call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will rescue him and honor him.”

• Isaiah 61:1–3. “The Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the afflicted.”

• 2 Corinthians 10:4. “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”

• Isaiah 62:6. “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen … who remind the LORD.”

Quotes:

• “I am driven to see us in our prayers really contend for God to move supernaturally in this situation and that there be divine intervention in a way that only God can. I think the situation needs that. And I think Israel deserves that.”

• “There has never been historically an army that has the integrity and the carefulness that Israel has, especially with respect to protecting those who are innocent, even though their enemy is hiding within the houses of the innocent and using them as a shield.”

• “During these days of war in Israel, we will continue to send the contributions that we do. Each one of these eight nonprofit organizations receives from us a monthly offering, not just one of them each month. All of them each month receive set funds that we give. If nobody gives to Hargrave Ministries, we still give to these organizations on a monthly basis.”

Takeaways:

1. We believe that the prophecies and promises of the Scriptures exist for Israel and they will be fulfilled for Israel. We also know that this has been a difficult and wicked attack beyond anything the world has seen in recent times. And we contend that the provisions of God's presence and covering and protection and victory be given to Israel today.

2. Let the promises in Psalm 91 and Isaiah 61 guide your intercession during this critical time. Take these Scriptures and read them into the realm of spirit, reminding the Lord that we are looking to see His divine intervention for Israel in the events that are taking place.

3. We recognize that this is also a media war that is spreading across the world, and the lies and disinformation are absolutely amazing. One of the biggest issues in this situation will be lies versus the truth. Be careful what you read. Be careful what you believe. Do your own personal due diligence to confirm the information.

Resources:

Help Israel Now | Hargrave Ministries

Interviews From Israel | Hargrave Ministries

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Web Description: As we leave the Feast of Tabernacles, we should prepare our hearts to walk in the things we are believing to create by our faith for the upcoming spiritual year. What is our attitude and how will we live as we go into this time? One thing I want to do is refuse to allow my past to frame my future. I am refusing to go forward from this day and not have a different relationship with the Word of God. It is unacceptable that His Word would go unfulfilled and not frame my future, my daily life, and my reality.

Show Notes: I think we are far too passive in the way we read certain Scriptures. We tend to feel it is fine that we are not having an explosive fulfillment of those Words in our lives. We read that we are new creatures in Christ and that old things have passed away. But we think of it as a type of affirmation or as our quote for the day instead of a demand: “Yes, the old things have passed away! Through the blood of Christ there is an elimination of all that was in my life before. And there is something new being imparted to me.”

According to the Word of God, we do not know anyone after the flesh. So do we still know other people and ourselves after the flesh? I think we do, and we allow that way of relating to continue. We have our own excuses as to why we allow it, and those excuses are usually born out of our past history of relating to ourselves, to the world, or to the people around us. Whatever the reason, we have to be honest and admit that we have developed a faith in the Word not working and not manifesting in its complete power in our lives.

Paul wrote, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” Why? Paul had to deal with the same passivity that we face. There is a popular excuse within Christianity: “My salvation experience means I have obtained everything.” But Paul said, “I have not obtained everything. Whatever I obtained in the past is worthless compared to knowing Christ and the power of His resurrection. Therefore, I leave everything of yesterday and press into an even greater fulfillment tomorrow.” We must have this same attitude that our past is done away with, and we are pressing into all that God has for us in our future.

Key Verses:

• 2 Corinthians 5:17. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”

• Philippians 2:5–11. “EVERY KNEE WILL BOW … every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

• Philippians 2:12–13. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling.”

• Isaiah 66:2. “To this one I will look, to him … who trembles at My word.”

• Joshua 13:1. “Much of the land remains to be possessed.”

• Philippians 3:7–15. “Forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on.”

• Exodus 33:18. “Then Moses said, ‘I pray You, show me Your glory!’”

• Revelation 3:20. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

Quotes:

• “As we start a new year following this tremendous Feast of Tabernacles, we have to say, ‘Whatever things were gained to me, those things I count as lost again. The old things pass away and whole new things have come.’ And it has to be that way for us.”

• “When it came down to Christ becoming our Savior, it was an act of will at that last moment in the Garden of Gethsemane that says, ‘Not My will, but Your will be done.’”

• “We may have been perfect up to yesterday. But as of today, we must press on to something that is greater.”

Takeaways:

1. Being born again does not mean we are at the end of what salvation is all about any more than a newborn baby has attained all there is in human life. Being newly born into salvation means that we still have to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. It takes work on our part. It takes going after it. There needs to be the trembling in our heart at the Word of God because we must allow it to have the power in our lives to fulfill itself.

2. Whatever we have, we cannot say that we have attained everything that is available to us. Through the Word God has spoken, He has provided all things pertaining to life and godliness, but we have yet to attain to all those things.

3. We need the same attitude Paul had, in which we forget what lies behind and reach forward to what lies ahead. We cannot be stuck in the past, unaware of the new thing God has for us. It does not matter how limited or how great our walk with God was in the past—that was yesterday. And our today and tomorrow hold something greater than anything we have ever known.

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Web Description: As Christians we need to be in prayer for Israel, but we also need to make sure that our intercession is fully based on a biblical foundation. At the present time there is a great deal of division taking place in Israel. What we see taking place is a real concern. But what we pray for—what we speak into the realm of spirit—must be what we know will take place according to the Scriptures, which is that Israel will be one nation with one God, with one King, and filled with the Spirit of God.

Show Notes: We cannot let recent divisions and political turmoil in Israel divert the focus of our intercession. Prophecies that Israel will be a single undivided nation came when Israel was very divided—the people of Israel were divided into two kingdoms. How could the tribes of Israel and Judah be any more divided than they were in the days of Ezekiel? Yet Ezekiel prophesied that all the tribes of Israel will be joined together into one kingdom. They will be one people with one God and one nation with one King, the Messiah.

As Christians we must be diligent to avoid the anti-Semitism and fear mongering that is so prevalent today. If you are looking for an excuse to be negative, just read Ezekiel’s prophecies about Gog and Magog. Those events could be very devastating and frightening. But those very prophecies point to the end game that God has in mind. God is always working out His purpose and His plan. And the end of that plan is His restoration of Israel and the establishment of His Kingdom on the earth.

If you want to know how to pray for Israel during this time, the answer is simple. The Scriptures declare that God will gather His people from the nations where He has scattered them, return them to their land, and make them one nation. They will be His people and He will be their God and they will have one King over them. Furthermore, He will sanctify them to glorify His name through them and fill them with His Spirit. These prophecies make it clear how to pray. Whatever issues there are and whatever seeming division there is, we proclaim the Words of God over Israel.

Key Verses:

• Read Ezekiel chapters 35 through 39.

• Ezekiel 37:15–22. “They will no longer be two nations and no longer be divided into two kingdoms.”

• Romans 11:26. “And so all Israel will be saved.”

• Ezekiel 37:23–28. “The nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel.”

• Ezekiel 39:21–29. “‘I will have poured out My Spirit on the house of Israel,’ declares the Lord GOD.”

• Jeremiah 29:13–14. “When you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you.”

Quotes:

• “It doesn't matter what our eyes see or what our ears hear. It matters what God says. It matters what God is doing. And the process that He's taking Israel through is His business and it's what He knows is His plan that needs to be executed in order to bring about this oneness.”

• “God is always working with the nations. He's always working with all mankind and all of the world. And He's doing it with and through the covenants that He has with His people.”

• “Lord, let us behold these days. Let us live through these days as believers in Christ, the ones who will be praying and crying out to You for every Word of these prophecies to be fulfilled over Israel today.”

Takeaways:

1. Israel will not be a divided nation. Certainly, it will not be two nations, but it will also not be a nation filled with division. They will have one God. And they will have one King, Messiah the son of David, and He will rule over them forever.

2. God has hidden Himself from Israel so that they could not find Him. But He will no longer hide Himself, and according to the prophecies, when they seek His face He will be found of them.

3. Israel will have a tremendous experience of sanctification and will experience a tremendous outpouring. They will be filled with the Spirit of the Lord, and they will dwell in peace in the land.

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Web Description: The feasts are a divine time in which we can break through into things that are available to us. And I believe that Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, this year is one of those times. As we celebrate these days of Sukkot, let us finish them with a drive of spirit that says we will walk with God, we will obey His Word, and we will love Him with all our hearts and souls. We are able to do this because His provision and equipping has enabled us.

Show Notes: In the previous podcast we discussed how the Feast of Tabernacles is a time to celebrate the preparation God has for us in this life, just as Israel observed the feast as a remembrance of their preparation in the wilderness. A major aspect of that preparation was the Lord commanding His people to love Him with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their might. He also told them, “This commandment is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.” God was not commanding them to do something that He was not also enabling them to do.

Now apply this to yourself as a believer in Christ today. John reminds us that we do not have a new commandment. It is the same commandment we have heard from the beginning. We know that we are to love the Lord with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves but obeying that sometimes seems too difficult or out of reach. We need this realization that if God tells us to do something He also equips us and enables us to do it.

Therefore, we cannot continue making excuses for not loving God and observing His commandments to us, especially in these days in which we live. There is an urgency on this age to obey God, just as He spoke to Israel. So as you continue to celebrate this great Feast of Tabernacles, I encourage you to reach in with an even greater faith that God will enable you to love Him with all your heart in order to please Him and be capable of performing the works that He has prepared for us.

Key Verses:

• Deuteronomy 30:5–8. “God will circumcise your heart … to love the LORD your God with all your heart.”

• Deuteronomy 30:9–14. “This commandment … is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach.”

• Deuteronomy 30:15–20. “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.”

• 2 John 1:4–6. “This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning.”

• Leviticus 19:18. “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

• Romans 10:6–8. “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART.”

• Deuteronomy 6:4–13. “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”

• Jeremiah 31:33. “I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it.”

Quotes:

• “God doesn't command you to do something that He doesn't also equip you and enable you to do.”

• “We can do this. He's putting it in our heart. He's putting the words of faith in our mouth that we may speak them into existence.”

• “This promise comes not because you say, “I'm saved,” and you go on and live your life in some other way. It comes because we literally live a life in which we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, and we obey His voice.”

Takeaways:

1. This is not out of reach for us. We can do this. We can come into the reality of loving the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul. This Word is near us. It is in our mouths and our hearts that we may observe it.

2. There are Words that He has commanded us. There are the Words that He has put upon our hearts. And we have to stop saying, “This is too difficult for us.” It is not too difficult. God has made it possible.

3. This idea of loving God with all our hearts and observing His statutes and His instructions to us really is life or death, prosperity or adversity. I am ready to celebrate this Feast of Tabernacles in such a way that we come out of it living in days of life and prosperity, and we walk away from the age of death and adversity.

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Web Description: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is a remembrance of everything God did in the wilderness to prepare His people to live in Him and be an expression of Him to the earth. And we today are in a time of preparation to do the will of God that He might be glorified through us in the ages to come. During this Feast of Tabernacles let us remember all that God has done and continues to do to prepare us to walk with Him and to please Him.

Show Notes: The Lord brought Israel out of their bondage in the land of Egypt, but He brought them out with a purpose. He brought them out to bring them into the land of Canaan as their possession as He had promised. To see that promise fulfilled, however, the children of Israel had to be prepared. And Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is a remembrance of that time of preparation when they lived in the wilderness for forty years.

Why did they need that preparation? It was not so they could continue to live in the wilderness. They were in the wilderness for forty years so they would learn the commandments and statutes that would enable them to possess the land and continue to live in it. They had to live in a righteous way before God to be His people and remain in the land He had promised them. Tabernacles was a way to remind them year after year of what it took to become God’s people and to be the example to the nations that God intended.

So as Christians, what are we celebrating at this Feast of Tabernacles? I believe it is a time to celebrate what God has done for us in our wilderness. This life as we know it, in the earth and the flesh at this moment, is very much a training ground like the wilderness was for Israel. And this feast is a good time to recognize how God delivered us from our bondage to sin and gave us a purpose in this life, which is not to die and go to heaven but to be prepared to live with Him in His eternal Kingdom.

Key Verses:

• Exodus 6:6–9. “I will take you for My people, and I will be your God.”

• Deuteronomy 6:20–24. “He brought us out from there in order to bring us in.”

• Exodus 13:3–10. “With a powerful hand the LORD brought you out of Egypt.”

• Leviticus 23:39–43. “You shall live in booths … so that your generations may know.”

• Deuteronomy 4:1–14. “The things which your eyes have seen … make them known to your sons and your grandsons.”

• 2 John 1:4–6. “This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning.”

• 2 Peter 1:2–11. “He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so … you may become partakers of the divine nature.”

• Ephesians 1:2–12. “He chose us … that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love.”

• Ephesians 2:1–10. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.”

Quotes:

• “God gives us promises, but God has to prepare us to continually live in those promises. Otherwise, we will lose the blessing which He has prepared for us.”

• “Life does not end with death. This life is a portion of our eternal life that we live on with God.”

• “This age of the Holy Spirit that we now live in, following the resurrection and ascension of Christ, is about our preparation for the ages to come.”

Takeaways:

1. The wilderness was a time of preparation for the Israelites to possess the promises that God had made to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Lord taught them the commandments, the teachings, the precepts, and the wisdom that would enable them to take the land of Canaan and continue living in the land.

2. The Feast of Tabernacles is a time of remembrance of those forty years in the wilderness so that they would never forget, throughout their generations for eternity, what they had to go through to become the people who could possess all that God had promised them.

3. The days we are living in now are our days of preparation for the possession of all that God has promised us. This is a moment in our eternity to prepare for all that God has prepared for us to walk in. Let this Feast of Tabernacles be a time to reflect on our eternal life and eternal purpose in God.

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Web Description: If you are in Christ, you are a new creature and old things have passed away. So have the old things passed away from you? Has your old Adamic nature passed away and you no longer struggle with sin? Is that an experience you have had? I think, for the most part, people do not believe that that experience even exists. Yet that experience is what the Day of Atonement is about. And as we celebrate it this year, I think we should appropriate that experience to be the reality in our lives.

Show Notes: Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is observed as a time of fasting and repentance. It was a day appointed by God to make atonement for the people and to cleanse them of their sins. That involved animal sacrifice, but an important aspect of that day was that one goat was not sacrificed but sent out alive to remove the sins of the people. Christ did this for us on a permanent basis. Yet as Christians we emphasize the forgiveness of sin, and this aspect of permanently removing our sin is something we have difficulty believing.

Regardless, this is something God emphasized for the Day of Atonement. Our understanding of forgiveness is rooted in Passover. As the Passover lamb covered the children of Israel and protected them from judgment, so the blood of Christ covers us and protects us from judgment. This covering is generally what we refer to as forgiveness of sins. But the cleansing and removal of sin was not at Passover; it was on the Day of Atonement.

I think there is an important difference between having our sins forgiven and having our sins removed. You can be forgiven of your sins and still have the nature of sin in you. And it is clear that we Christians still have that nature. Therefore, just as Passover is an important part of our deliverance, so the Day of Atonement is a time when we look to the Lord—not just for the forgiveness of our sin but for the removal of the nature of sin. Can we believe for that? I think we can.

Key Verses:

• 1 Corinthians 5:7. “Christ our Passover also has been sacrificed.”

• Leviticus 23:26–28. “It is a day of atonement, to make atonement on your behalf before the LORD.”

• Leviticus 16:1–34. Read about Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

• Leviticus 16:11. “Aaron shall offer the bull of the sin offering which is for himself … and for his household.”

• Leviticus 16:15. “He shall slaughter the goat of the sin offering which is for the people.”

• Leviticus 16:22. “The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land.”

• Leviticus 16:30. “It is on this day that atonement shall be made for you to cleanse you.”

• Hebrews 9:18–28. “Christ … will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin.”

• 2 Corinthians 5:15–17. “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature.”

• John 3:1–13. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

• Romans 6:1–13. “Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with.”

• Ephesians 4:22–24. “Be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self.”

• Colossians 3:9–10. “You laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Quotes:

• “Every Sunday you receive Communion, the Lord's Supper, and the purpose of that is to remember the sacrifice that was made. And most people use it in applying the blood once again and looking for forgiveness of the sins that have transpired since last Sunday.”

• “I think we should humble ourselves and reach for a level of experience that we have not yet received, which is this new creature that is freed from the conditionings and the nature of the past.”

• “There is a process where we transcend through the good, the acceptable, and the perfect into a renewal of our mind, which transforms us into His likeness and His image. And I believe this is the purpose of the Day of Atonement.”

Takeaways:

1. The meaning of atonement is just as the word is spelled: at-one-ment. We are to be at one with God, brought into a oneness with Him. Yet God is without sin and cannot countenance the existence of sin. It is one thing to be forgiven of sin, but we cannot dwell with God in His presence with sin still dwelling within us. Atonement involves the removal of that sin.

2. The idea that we are forgiven is wonderful. We understand that through forgiveness we receive eternal life, and we are accepted into the family of God. But for me personally, it grieves me that we continue to live—and feel like it is acceptable to live—with this nature of sin still dominating or at least existing within us.

3. I believe that we can reach in right now and appropriate the reality of the Day of Atonement, and we can put on the new self. Yes, we need to be forgiven of our sins, but likewise, we need to lay aside the old self and put on the new self, “which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness.”

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Web Description: This podcast is titled “Day of Trumpets 2023” because it is important that we apply this day appointed for the sounding of trumpets to the specific year in which we live. The Hebrew word for blowing trumpets is truah, which can mean to sound an alarm. And that is what we need right now. We need an alarm clock to wake us up from our dullness, our lack of awareness, and our passivity. We must wake up and be alert to hear what the Lord is speaking to us for the coming year.

Show Notes: When enacting the Day of Trumpets, the Lord spoke to Moses, “It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets,” or in Hebrew, “a day for truah.” By understanding the meanings of the word truah we can understand how the Day of Trumpets is not just a historical observance that involved people blowing into physical trumpets or ram’s horns. It is a specific time that God appointed to meet His people and is very applicable to us today.

Truah, the blowing of trumpets, can be a signal to announce an important day or the arrival of a king. Truah can be a shout, making a noise before the Lord. It can be praise and worship of the Lord. It can be an alarm to alert people to attack or to be alert in battle. These are all ways we can celebrate the Day of Trumpets. We can shout to remind the Lord of His promises; we can announce the fulfillment of His Kingdom; we can praise and worship Him; we can sound the alarm in spiritual warfare.

This year especially, our truah needs to be an alarm, like an alarm clock next to our bed to wake us up. We need to wake up to what is happening around us. We need to wake up to the day we are living in. We need to wake up and take account of our own personal walk with the Lord and make sure that we are doing what He is directing us to do. We need to be aware of the battle in these last days and cry out before the Lord that He remember us and fulfill His Word over His people.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 23:24–25. “You shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets.”

• Isaiah 55:6–7. “Seek the LORD while He may be found.”

• Numbers 29:1. “It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets [truah].”

• Leviticus 25:9. “On the day of atonement you shall sound a horn all through your land.”

• Jeremiah 4:19. “You have heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.”

• Amos 2:2. “Moab will die amid tumult, with war cries and the sound of a trumpet.”

• Psalms 150:3. “Praise Him with trumpet sound; praise Him with harp and lyre.”

• Numbers 10:8–10. “The priestly sons of Aaron, moreover, shall blow the trumpets.”

• Psalm 100:1 (KJV). “Make a joyful noise unto the LORD.”

• Luke 21:28. “When these things begin to take place, straighten up and lift up your heads.”

• Isaiah 55:11. “My word … will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire.”

• Romans 13:10–14. “It is already the hour for you to awaken from sleep.”

• Ephesians 5:14–19. “Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead.”

• Isaiah 52:1–11. “Awake, awake, clothe yourself in your strength, O Zion.”

• Isaiah 60:1–5. “Lift up your eyes round about and see.”

• Isaiah 51:17, 22–23. “Rouse yourself! Rouse yourself! Arise, O Jerusalem.”

Quotes:

• “This is a day of reminder. Lord, we remind You of the promises. We remind You of the prophecies that You've spoken. We remind You about Your Kingdom.”

• “It's time for us to take stock of how we are walking. We wake up, lay aside the deeds of darkness, put aside our walk with God from yesterday, and put on the armor of light.”

• “He will remember His people, He will remember His Word, and He will come down to fulfill it. He will comfort His people, and He will redeem Jerusalem. All that He has spoken will be fulfilled.”

Takeaways:

1. The Hebrew word truah, translated as “blowing of trumpets,” can mean shouting unto the Lord. It can mean sounding an alarm. It can mean announcing the warning of battle that is coming. It can mean praising God and making a joyful noise unto the Lord.

2. These are the things I believe we will see triggered this year as we celebrate the Day of Trumpets with all our hearts. It will be a day of crying to the Lord, waking up in our walk with God, purifying ourselves, coming into a righteousness before God, and God responding and remembering us, and remembering His Word and fulfilling it.

3. The alarm is being sounded just like it goes off in the morning next to your bed and shocks you out of your sleep. God wants us to be awake now. The time for sleeping is over. He wants us to get right with Him. He wants us to be waiting on Him, crying out to Him, praying to Him, into the Word, and believing for the fulfillment of all that He has spoken.

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Web Description: The world is in need of those who can do the works of God. But that will not happen if we think we are in a long-distanced relationship with Christ and the Father, in which we pray with a hope against hope that they will throw down a miracle from the throne room. We need to replace that concept of separation with the reality that Christ ascended to the Father so that they can dwell in us and be in our daily lives right now on this earth.

Show Notes: We tend to believe that Yeshua (Jesus) could do miracles because He was more than human. He was not. He was in the flesh just as you and I are in the flesh. He was not half flesh and half divine. He was the Son of Man, born of a woman, and raised on this earth. And by virtue of the enabling that every earthly human has, He developed a relationship with the Father where the power of God dwelled within Him.

As a human on the earth, before He ascended to heaven, Christ was able to touch God in the realm where He exists, to see Him in the realm where He exists, and to relate to Him in the realm where He exists. We, however, have trouble believing that we can know God as Christ did. God is Spirit. He is a heavenly Being in a heavenly realm. And our mindset as Christians is that we can only relate to Him after death when we are in a heavenly form.

Now that Christ is at the right hand of the Father, we do the same thing to Him, making Him distant and separate from us. Nothing could be further from the truth! The very reason Christ came in the flesh was to do away with the separation between us and the Father. He came to reconcile us to the Father, so that we can behold Christ and the Father, dwell in them and them in us, and have the abiding presence of God in us to do His works in the earth.

Key Verses:

• John 14:15–20. “He abides with you and will be in you.”

• 2 Corinthians 5:16. “We have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer.”

• Jeremiah 29:13–14. “… when you search for Me with all your heart. I will be found by you.”

• John 14:21–24. “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”

• John 14:25–29. “These things I have spoken to you while abiding with you.”

• John 14:6–12. “Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me.”

• John 10:37–38. “Understand that the Father is in Me, and I in the Father.”

• John 16:12. “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.”

• Colossians 1:25–27. “God willed to make known … Christ in you, the hope of glory.”

Quotes:

• “Just because He is not visible in this world does not mean that He is not supposed to be available for us to see Him now, whether that means we see Him with our physical eyes or we behold Him in another way.”

• “Don't try to seek Him to be in some form or to be in some manifestation that He is not. We must seek Him as He is. And when we do, He will be found of us.”

• “He ascended to the Father, not so that we can go to them at some point after we die. It's so that we can have a life relationship with them while we are in this flesh.”

Takeaways:

1. While Yeshua was in the flesh, He kept emphasizing again and again that the Father was in Him, and that He was in the Father, and that they were one at the time of His existence in the flesh.

2. God created us as humans with the capacity, while we are alive in this human form, to have the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit dwelling in us. Not only can they dwell and abide in us, but they can also work through us the greater works in this age.

3. Our walk with God should be something much greater than what most Christians are experiencing today. The Father should be in us, and we should be in Him. And Christ should be in us, and we should be in Him. And the Holy Spirit should be in us, and we should be in Him. And the power of God should be dwelling in us, and we should be doing the greater works Christ spoke of.

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Web Description: Why do we believe as we believe for Israel and for the Jewish people? Because God said to. This is a Scriptural mandate to the Gentile Church that we comfort His people and be part of what God is doing to restore the Jewish people to their land. On this foundation we stand and pray with an intense focus that God will end the current pattern of division and violence within Israel and fulfill His Words over His people right now before our eyes.

Show Notes: As we enter into the time of the Fall feasts, I believe there is an urgent need for prayer that is focused on Israel and the Jewish people, and I am making a request to you for intercession during this time. The reason is because of a deep burden on my heart. It concerns me that Israel is being affected and impacted by the same spirits of anger and division that are devouring many nations on the earth.

At this moment in Israel we are seeing protests over judicial reform that almost bring cities to a halt and stop the normal flow of function. There is also a great deal of division manifesting between ultra-Orthodox and Orthodox Jews. There have actually been proposals floated to break up Israel into two Jewish states. In addition we see new levels of violence beginning to take place within Israel, not just between Jews and Arabs but especially against Christians.

According to His Word and His promises, the purpose that God has for Israel is not to fall into the world’s pattern but instead to be an example and an illustration that the world should follow. And we need to pray with a renewed intensity and determination that we will see with our own eyes the fulfillment of those Words. Our faith for Israel and the Jewish people is not based on current events, but because God has made a covenant by the oath of Himself to the nation and people of Israel. And He uses this relationship He has with them to prove Himself to all the earth.

Key Verses:

• Jeremiah 31:33–36. “This is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel.”

• Ezekiel 36:22–23. “The nations will know that I am the Lord … when I prove Myself holy among you.”

• Numbers 14:15–17. “The nations … will say, ‘Because the Lord could not bring this people into the land which He promised.’”

• Ezekiel 36:24–30. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”

• Isaiah 24:5. “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants.”

• Ezekiel 11:17–20. “I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them.”

• Jeremiah 32:38-41. “I will give them one heart and one way.”

Quotes:

• “Do we love the Jewish people? Yes. Do we see the benefit of Judaism in its relationship to Christianity and what it provides for us as believers? Absolutely. But the foundation that we are building everything upon is the Scriptures themselves.”

• “These blessings that God is proclaiming are solidified before God. They are a covenant. They are His Word that He has given that these Words will be fulfilled. They will take place before our very eyes.”

• “Will there be a judicial reform? Yes, there will, because they will walk in His statutes and His ordinances and be His people. And that will manifest, because, again, it is part of the promise that God has made to Israel.”

Takeaways:

1. We need to determine with an intensity that we are going to see the Words over Israel fulfilled before our eyes. They are not for another generation. We cannot put them off to sometime in the future. This is a prayer of urgency. We are praying now that we see these Words fulfilled now.

2. Remember that Christian support of Israel must be born out of obedience in faith to the Word of God and not rooted in Israel’s actions. Whatever is happening now, it does not change our stance, our faith, and our determination.

3. The ultimate fulfillment of the Word is God glorifying Himself, not just before Israel, but before all of the nations of the world. That is the end game. That is what we are looking to see. Therefore our prayer is, “Lord, glorify Yourself through the fulfillment of your Word.” Amen.

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Web Description: End-time events are happening even now in the world, and now more than ever those who are doing the will of God need to be able to work the works of God. Christ said that those who believed in Him would do greater works than He did, but the works I see Christians doing today are not even on the level that Christ did. I think we should stop excusing ourselves and apply the faith and anointing He gave us to manifest His power and His works to the world.

Show Notes: I am wanting to get across to us the sense of how Christ moved when He was in the earth because I believe it is the way that we are to move. The word miracles is very commonly used within Christianity to describe the amazing things Yeshua did. Yet when He spoke about what He did, He did not use the term miracles. He called them “works.” He said He was doing the works of God. Furthermore, He said that those who believed in Him would do those same works and even greater ones.

When we think of a miracle, we think of a divine act by a divine being and something beyond our human ability to understand or perform. Our own work, however, is something we know (or should know) how to do. We do not think that we are doing miracles. Yet by thinking that Yeshua did miracles, we fail to acknowledge that He came to earth in the flesh. He was a human being just like each of us, and as a human being He did the works of the Father. He understood what He was doing and knew the works were within His capacity as a human to accomplish.

Let us wake up to the reality that the works of God by us in our existing human form are within our ability. Not only are they within our ability, but they are also within the context of what Yeshua said we would do. We must stop relating to Christ as having a different form or a greater ability than we do while He was on the earth. He was as human as we are, but in His relationship to the Father, He had the enabling within His flesh to accomplish the works of God. In our relationship with Christ and the Father, we have this same enabling in our flesh right now, and we should begin to believe it and exercise it.

Key Verses:

• John 14:11–12. “Greater works than these he will do.”

• John 10:25. “The works that I do in My Father’s name, these testify of Me.”

• Luke 19:37. “The disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the miracles.”

• Psalm 103:6–7. “He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the sons of Israel.”

• John 6:4–11. “He Himself knew what He was intending to do.”

• Romans 4:17. “God … calls into being that which does not exist.”

• Luke 5:15–17. “The power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing.”

• John 4:24. “God is spirit.”

• Acts 1:6–8. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

Quotes:

• “The door was opened, as Christ went to the Father, for us to enter into the presence of the Father. And therefore, that door opened the enabling for us to do, as Christ did, the works of the Father.”

• “It creeps into the mind of believers that Christ, while He was here on the earth, was something different than what you are while you're here in your time on this earth.”

• “We must know how to immerse ourselves into the Holy Spirit. We cannot keep sitting here in a physical world, relating to ourselves as physical bodies and as matter only, and expect for anything to happen and pray that somehow God will drop a miracle out of the sky.”

Takeaways:

1. Christ was human as we are human. And yet He was able to do the works that everyone else called miracles and are still calling miracles to this day.

2. To Christ they were not miracles. They were the works of God. And He knew exactly how to perform them. And He knew that they were the result of the power of God that rested upon Him.

3. You are going to do the works of God because the power of God rests on you as it rested on Him when He was in human flesh, as it rested on the disciples when they were in human flesh, as it rested on Moses when he was in human flesh. This ability exists, and we must have it in our minds that this is not only a possibility, but the way we as believers should live our daily lives.

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Web Description: We can say, “We need miracles! We need to make disciples of the nations!” But Yeshua (Jesus) performed miracles and made disciples because of the compassion in His heart toward people. And we cannot expect the same results if our love has grown cold, and we are restrained in our emotions. Our focus should not be on the works themselves but on receiving and expressing, by the Holy Spirit, the Father’s compassion that is in Christ.

Show Notes: When describing the end times, Yeshua said that people’s love will grow cold because of the abounding iniquity, or increasing lawlessness, in the world. This is not something He said will happen to some people. He said it will happen to most people. We need to recognize that one of the greatest battles we face today is the war against the heart, that is, against the feelings and expressions that come from our hearts.

In the Gospels we read again and again that Christ brought teachings and performed miracles and made disciples because He was moved by a heart of compassion. His actions were directed by His emotions. And that is true of us. What we feel we act out. If our hearts are filled with compassion, we will move in acts of compassion. On the other hand, if we feel that being emotional is not appropriate for Christians or our love is cold because we are affected by the world, we will not have the same expression that Christ had.

How do we counter this trend toward less and less love? We counter it by opening our hearts, especially by receiving the Holy Spirit and allowing the fruit of the Holy Spirit to dwell within us. If our hearts are filled with these emotions, the fruit of the Spirit, then we will minister to the earth in these days with the same compassion that moved Him. This is the only way that people will see the heart of the Father.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 24:6–13. “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”

• Matthew 9:35–36. “Seeing the people, He felt compassion for them.”

• Matthew 14:14. “He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.”

• Matthew 15:32. “Jesus called His disciples to Him, and said, ‘I feel compassion for the people.’”

• Matthew 20:29–31. “The crowd sternly told them to be quiet, but they cried out all the more.”

• Matthew 20:32–34. “Moved with compassion, Jesus touched their eyes.”

• Psalm 51:10–12. “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.”

• Mark 1:40–42. “Moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him.”

• Mark 9:22. “Take pity on us and help us!”

• Luke 7:12–15. “When the Lord saw her, He felt compassion for her.”

• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”

• Luke 15:17–24. “His father saw him and felt compassion for him.”

• 1 Peter 4:8. “Love covers a multitude of sins.”

• Romans 5:10. “While we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.”

• Galatians 5:22–24. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

• Luke 23:34. “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.”

Quotes:

• “God is love. That is an emotion. So if it's not too emotional for God to be love, then it's not too emotional for us to feel and express His love.”

• “It amazes me how in Scripture after Scripture after Scripture, event after event, healing after healing were all triggered by the heart of compassion that Christ had in Him.”

• “We become very unaware of God, His love for us, and we violate all that He is and all that He's given for us. At some point, we come to our senses. And we hope that for the world at large today. Father, let this age come to its senses and wake up from its “woke” mentality and come to You.”

Takeaways:

1. God's heart and the emotions of His heart were planted in you like a seed. And like fruit they are to grow on the tree of your life, and they are to manifest themselves in your heart. The only thing we have that manifests emotion is the heart. And everything Christ did, including going to the cross, was motivated by the love and compassion in His heart.

2. We know that Christ walked by the Spirit. We know that He was led by the Spirit. What does that really mean? It means He was led by emotions, the fruit of the Spirit. We likewise are told by the Scriptures to be filled with the Spirit, to be led by the Spirit, and to walk by the Spirit. That means that we, just like Christ, must be driven by a heart filled with the emotional fruit of the Spirit.

3. The Father ministered His compassion to His Son, and His Son ministered it to the world as a representative of the Father. That is who we are to be in this age. But if we let the love in our hearts grow cold because of the iniquity around us, and if we let ourselves in our emotions be affected by this world and come into agreement with this world, then there will be nothing in this world to be a reflection of the love and compassion that the Father has for all mankind.

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Web Description: We are largely unaware that the heart is an instrument capable of receiving what God is striving to impart to us by His Word and by the power of His Spirit. He wants to impart the fruit of the Spirit, the emotions that should be living in and expressed from our hearts. Yet this age is continually working on us to be closed off, fearful, and unable to love. This pattern must be broken, and we must truly open our hearts to the Lord if we are to manifest His gifts.

Show Notes: How do you receive the wisdom, revelation, and understanding to know the great provision that God, by His Spirit, is directing toward us as believers? According to the book of Ephesians, the eyes of your heart need to be enlightened. In other words, your heart must become an instrument of understanding, wisdom, and revelation. Our education as Christians, however, makes us reluctant to think of the heart in this way.

The heart is the seat of emotion, and Christians have been taught to be wary of emotions, primarily because of what is seen as the misuse of emotional expression in worship. Yet Paul tells us to put on a heart of compassion. Compassion is an emotion. Kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, and forgiveness are emotions. Forgiveness is the foundation of our salvation, and it is something you feel with your heart and not just understand with your head.

It is very necessary for us to open our hearts to these emotions from God, but we find it difficult to do so. The Corinthians were unable to experience what God had for them because their hearts were not open to Paul. Why? They were restrained in their own emotions. We also cannot receive the power of God’s emotions if our hearts are closed by the fear and hatred of this age and by the abounding iniquity that makes our love grow cold. Let us reverse this trend in our own lives and make our hearts the instruments of revelation and impartation that God intends.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 1:16–21. “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened.”

• 2 Corinthians 6:11–13. “Our heart is opened wide. You are not restrained by us … open wide to us also.”

• 2 Corinthians 7:2–3. “Make room for us in your hearts.”

• Colossians 3:12–17. “Put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”

• Matthew 24:6–13. “Because lawlessness is increased, most people’s love will grow cold.”

• Galatians 5:22–23. “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.”

• Romans 12:2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

Quotes:

• “I think that we have to open up in a way to the emotion of our heart. We need this prayer to be answered that Paul prayed for the church that the eyes of our heart be enlightened.”

• “Thankfulness is one of the greatest emotions next to love that we can have that opens us up to receive what God has for us.”

• “The enemy’s desire is that the heart of the believer would be that which closes up and restrains itself. And if it does, we are not able to receive from God, nor are we able to minister out from God.”

Takeaways:

1. There will not be the manifestation of gifts of the Spirit if there are not first the manifestation of the emotions from our heart that come by the infilling of the Holy Spirit. The chief of these is love. Next to that is joy and then peace. If we are led by the Spirit, that means we are being led by emotions. What emotions? The emotions that are the fruit of the Spirit.

2. We should not be conformed to the emotions and feelings that are coming out of the hearts of the people of this age. We should be transformed. As believers, we are to put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.

3. When we grow in God, when we mature, we should be manifesting the fruit of the Spirit. These are all emotional feelings that enable us to both receive what God is imparting to us and to impart and minister to others. Therefore, let us open our hearts as Paul encouraged the Corinthians. Let us not be restrained in our own emotions, but rather let us open up to the emotions that come as the fruit of the Spirit imparted to us by God that we may walk in the Spirit.

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Aloha Everyone,

We felt the need to give a report on what is happening here on Maui. Thank you for all of your prayers during this devastating time on Maui.  While we are safe and back home after having to evacuate, let’s all continue to pray for the families affected by these catastrophic wildfires.

As always, thank you for your continued prayers and support of Hargrave Ministries

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Web Description: Will we ever see the breakthrough in the fulfillment of God's Word concerning the peace, prosperity, and restoration of Israel and the Jewish people? The answer to that is absolutely yes and amen. We will see God fulfill His Word. The mockers say, “Where is the promise of His coming?” But we choose to be the watchmen that God Himself has appointed to say, “Lord, fulfill your promises today.”

Show Notes: We have been in the Isaiah 62 Fast, a time of fasting and prayer for Israel from May 7 until Pentecost (Shavuot) on May 28. Isaiah 62 of course is the main Scripture that people have been reading and praying over during this time. In this Scripture we read that the watchmen on the walls take no rest for themselves and give God no rest until He establishes Jerusalem and makes it a praise in the earth. What suddenly struck me in this passage is the fact that God appoints these watchmen.

This is not something that we do by ourselves with human strength and ability. It is something that God Himself is going to do. We are not making up prayers about Jerusalem, Israel, and His chosen people. These are things that God has spoken through the mouth of His prophets over millennia. What we do is believe the Lord to be appointed, to be commissioned, to be given this impartation from the Lord for a ministry of intercession to see His Word fulfilled.

We are the ones who are interceding, but it will not happen by our efforts. We are reminding the Lord of the Word that He spoke and of the things that He has promised that will be the future of Jerusalem and Israel. We will see these things accomplished because His Word will accomplish for His namesake what He has proclaimed. Believe to be one of those who are anointed to stand on the walls and cry out to God to see the peace of Jerusalem, the restoration of His prophecies to Israel, and the fulfillment of His Word in our day.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 62:6–12. “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen.”

• Psalm 122:6–9. “Pray for the peace of Jerusalem.”

• Isaiah 55:6–13. “My word … will not return to Me empty, without accomplishing what I desire.”

• Jeremiah 33:1–22. “In those days Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell in safety.”

• 2 Peter 3:3–9. “The Lord is not slow about His promise.”

Quotes:

• “Lord, I ask that you appoint me as one of your watchmen. I ask that you commission me and anoint me as a watchman over the walls, over the peoples, over the prophecies that You've spoken about Jerusalem and about Israel.”

• “The Lord has sworn by His right hand and by His strong arm. So the ability to see peace in Jerusalem, to see the fulfillment is the fact that God Himself has spoken it.”

• “I think it's a time when the Word of God is opening up to us that we might see and behold what it really says about the fulfillment, the peace, and the breakthroughs that are just ahead for Jerusalem, for Israel, and the Jewish people.”

Takeaways:

1. It is God Himself who has appointed watchmen on the walls to remind Him of His Word over Jerusalem, Israel, and His chosen people. And His Word will be fulfilled by God Himself. Therefore, our intercession is not something we try to do in our own strength or ability to see these things accomplished.

2. There are many prophecies and Words that God has given about His will for Israel and for the peace of Jerusalem that we are to see in the earth. Our intercession is to contend for Him to bring about what we already know He is going to do.

3. God said that if you can stop the sun from rising and setting or prevent the order of day and night on the earth, then there is a possibility that the covenant with David can be broken. And we know that will never happen. So we should have faith to be His watchmen. We should cry out for the anointing of intercession to rest upon us that we see God move on behalf of His own namesake to fulfill all that He has spoken.

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Web Description: There are many misconceptions and even lies about Israel that are being promoted by the media. People are told that Israel is an apartheid State and that Jewish relations with the Arab community are very negative. That is why we are interviewing Daniel Gwertzman for this podcast. Daniel is president of the AMI-Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research, and he has lived in Israel for many years. He shares with us what relations between Jews and Arabs are really like in Israel and how positive they really are.

Show Notes: We hear so much on the news, especially in the US, about all the problems and conflicts between Arabs and Jews. But one thing we do not hear is the fact that many Arabs are Israeli citizens. On a daily basis millions of Jews and millions of Arabs live together in the State of Israel getting along, having their families, and being in the same places. Jews and Arabs ride together on the light rail system. They ride together on buses. And they are very courteous and helpful to each other.

Most of the people who work in Jewish hotels are Arabs. There are Arab doctors in Jewish hospitals, some of them heads of departments. We have Arab judges in Israel. There are Arabs who serve in the Israeli army, something they do by choice. Arabs attend universities in Israel—even religious universities—and they study in Jewish schools. Many Arabs are in high tech industries in Israel.

So this idea that Arabs have to walk on the other side of the street and are not in Jewish institutions is a lie. It is obvious to anyone who visits Israel that it is not an apartheid State. You might say, “Well those Arabs in Jewish institutions are Christians.” No, they are Muslims! Please come to Israel and see the truth for yourself. Help us break the lies and misconceptions about relations between Jews and Arabs.

Key Verses:

• Joshua 3:14–17. “All Israel crossed on dry ground, until all the nation had finished crossing the Jordan.”

• Joshua 4:19. “The people came up from the Jordan on the tenth of the first month and camped at Gilgal on the eastern edge of Jericho.”

• Joshua 18:1. “The whole congregation of the sons of Israel assembled themselves at Shiloh, and set up the tent of meeting there.”

Quotes:

• “I went into a Jewish institution and an Arab lady waited on me. An Arab gentleman waited on me. It's not strange at all. We work together.”

• “Many of these places that you read about in the Bible—they exist. You can go to Gilgal; you can go to Shiloh; you can go to all of these places. And in some of the places, they're located in Arab villages, which preserve the names of the ancient biblical sites.”

• “I would encourage you to experience all the delights of Israel and bless the Jews and bless the Christians and bless the Arabs.”

Takeaways:

1. What we hear a lot in the news is really dealing with a different faction of people that we would call terrorists or extremist groups. These are people who are not part of Israel but live in Gaza or other areas surrounding Israel and are under Palestinian authority. But we never hear the story about Arabs living in Jerusalem and being a part of daily life in Jerusalem.

2. This is the true paradigm about Jerusalem and Israel. Are there problems? Yes. Are there terrorists? Yes. But there are many good people who live there. And they want to live with their families in peace. They want to follow their religious practices without getting in the way of the religious practices of others or being disturbed by others in that practice.

3. Jews and Arabs are coming together more often. The light rail system has been very beneficial to relations between them. Arabs take the trains to the Jewish areas to go to work, go shopping, or go to the doctor. They no longer just shop and work in their area now that they can get on public transportation so easily.

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Web Description: How can we know scriptural prophecies will be fulfilled? Simple. Just look at how many prophecies have already been fulfilled! Rabbi Akiva saw the fulfillment of one prophecy: the destruction of the Temple. Therefore, he knew that all the promises about the restoration of Israel would also take place. Today we are witnessing far greater fulfillment of those prophecies than Akiva witnessed. We should have an even greater assurance that every prophecy will be fulfilled.

Show Notes: A story about Rabbi Akiva, who lived in the first century, is a lesson for us today. To the surprise if his fellow rabbis, he explained that the destruction of the Temple in AD 70 was a positive sign. He said, effectively, “I have read the prophecies about this destruction. Now I see it with my own eyes. So I know that it has taken place and has been fulfilled. And now I can trust that the positive prophecies about the restoration and redemption of God’s people are also true and will also take place.”

In our day we are seeing things even more clearly than Akiva could because we are seeing the positive events that were prophesied. We are seeing a nation born in a day. We are seeing the return of Israel to the land and the land being fruitful. We are seeing many aspects of the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel happening before our eyes. And because we see these fulfillments of God’s Word, we have the guarantee that future fulfillments will also take place.

Mockers today, as Peter warned, say that nothing has happened since the days of the fathers—since the beginning of creation. When you say such things, you are denying the truth of history. But I am afraid that history is something that is not being studied in this generation, certainly where scriptural prophecies are concerned. And as people of God, especially as Christians, we need to go back and study the prophecies of Scripture and let them show us what has already happened, what is happening now before our eyes, and where they confirm what will happen in the future.

Key Verses:

• Deuteronomy 30:1–10. “The LORD your God will bring you into the land which your fathers possessed.”

• Ezekiel 37:21–28. “They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob My servant.”

• Isaiah 56:7. “My house will be called a house of prayer for all the peoples.”

• Isaiah 2:1–3. “The law will go forth from Zion and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem.”

• Jeremiah 31:31–36. “If this fixed order departs from before Me, … then the offspring of Israel also will cease from being a nation before Me forever.”

• Jeremiah 32:36–42. “I will … faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.”

• Ezekiel 11:16–20. “I will gather you, … and I will give you the land of Israel.”

• Ezekiel 39:25–29. “I made them go into exile among the nations, and then gathered them again to their own land.”

• 2 Peter 3:3–6. “Mockers will come … saying, ‘Where is the promise of His coming?’”

• Matthew 24:1–3. “Tell us, when will these things happen?”

• Acts 1:6–8. “Is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

Quotes:

• “The real way to tell where we are in the timing of God is by looking at what is going on surrounding the prophetic Word that God has spoken in the Scriptures.”

• “These prophecies are assured, and they will come to pass, and they will be eternal in their fulfillment.”

• “We're seeing many of the aspects of the restoration of the Kingdom to Israel really happening right before our eyes, and we need to recognize that. And when we do recognize it, then we're able to look forward to the further fulfillments that should be taking place right before us.”

Takeaways:

1. Yeshua (Jesus) spoke of prophecies that had been fulfilled in His day. These were prophecies that were not necessarily clarified within the Hebrew Scriptures. They told of His suffering, His death, His resurrection, and His ascension to the Father. He then prophesied of future events, like the destruction of the Temple. All these things we know have been fulfilled and are now historical facts.

2. Like Rabbi Akiva, we can rejoice in these things, even though some of them are painful and disastrous. We can rejoice in what has happened because now we know for certain that the prophecies of His return and earthly rule as King of kings and Lord of lords will also happen. Therefore, we can wait with confident expectation as we continue to see the Word of God being fulfilled daily before our eyes, leading to the final day of the Lord, which like all other prophecies will have its complete fulfillment.

3. Our generation right now has a perspective that no other generation has ever had because we can look at what is transpiring and understand that we are in the midst of the restoration of the things that were prophesied. So it is important that we study the prophecies and understand clearly what is yet to take place. We may not understand the timing of it, but we do understand what the fulfillments will be.

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Web Description: Why the Jews? Why did God make an example of the Jewish people? The answer is because God wants to show the nations how to walk in obedience to Him. God set before Israel a blessing and a curse, and they were blessed when they followed Him and cursed when they disobeyed. Now God says to the nations, “Look at what happened to the Jewish people and recognize that I am setting before you a blessing and a curse. What will you choose?”

Show Notes: Today we are seeing the fulfillment of prophecy as God restores Israel. The children of Israel are becoming the source of blessing to all the nations and families of the earth, just as God spoke to Abraham. But for them to become that they had to go through a process that included their experience of disobedience to God and the consequences of that.

The history of Israel illustrates what happens when you live in obedience to God and what happens when you do not. Israel experienced the blessing of living in the land and the abundance of the land, as well as the curse of being removed from the land and the land being devastated. God has literally used the land of Israel as a lesson to the nations. He said, “Here is what happens when you do not serve Me. You are removed from your land. Your land is cursed. It becomes a desolate wilderness.”

The Jewish people were spread among the nations because of that curse. Now they are being drawn back to their land because of the blessing. And the blessing is also the illustration. They will become the fulfillment of the covenant and promise to Abraham that he would be a blessing to all the nations. Why? Because in watching Abraham and his children, we as the nations can learn the lessons of how to walk with God, how to serve Him in obedience, and how to give ourselves to the Word of God to please Him in the way in which He can bestow upon us the blessings of Abraham.

Key Verses:

• Exodus 4:22. “Thus says the LORD, ‘Israel is My son, My firstborn.’”

• Genesis 12:1–4. “I will make you a great nation. … And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

• Genesis 17:1–8. “I will establish My covenant between Me and you and your descendants.”

• Genesis 18:16–19. “I have chosen him, so that he may command his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD.”

• Exodus 19:8. “All that the LORD has spoken we will do!”

• Deuteronomy 11:1–25. “You shall therefore keep every commandment which I am commanding you.”

• Deuteronomy 30:1–8. “Return to the LORD your God and … then the LORD your God will restore you from captivity.”

• Ezekiel 37:21. “I will gather them from every side and bring them into their own land.”

• Ezekiel 37:28. “The nations will know that I am the LORD who sanctifies Israel.”

• Isaiah 2:2–4. “Come, let us go up to … the God of Jacob; that He may teach us concerning His ways.”

• Zechariah 8:11–15. “I will save you that you may become a blessing.”

• Zechariah 8:22–23. “Many peoples and mighty nations will come to seek the LORD of hosts in Jerusalem.”

• Joel 3:1–8. “I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel.”

Quotes:

• “God said that Israel is His firstborn. And it's this idea of His firstborn that God is using to display to the nations.”

• “When God says, ‘I’m going to bless you,’ what does that mean? It has no meaning unless there's an illustration of it. And so God was making Israel to be an illustration.”

• “Why the Jews? Because God is illustrating, He's teaching the nations how to relate to Him, how to walk with Him, how that if they are obedient before Him, they, like Israel, can be blessed.”

Takeaways:

1. God distinguished the Jewish people to fulfill His promise through the seed of Abraham. They were distinguished from other people because they were given a covenant that made Him their God and made them His people. In addition they were distinguished by virtue of the land He gave them that they were to possess and live in.

2. God made them an example of what is required to live under the blessing of the Lord, and He had to bring that blessing by virtue of their choices in their relationship with Him. So if Israel was to be a blessing to the nations as the children of Abraham under the covenant, then Israel had to choose the blessing rather than the curse. That means the consequences of choosing the curse was shown to the world by their example.

3. Now that the Jews are being restored to their land and the land is being blessed, God has finalized the picture He has been painting of the blessing and the curse. Now He is setting before all the nations the same choice He gave Israel. And it is time for the nations to choose between being blessed or cursed in their relationship with God.

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Web Description: In our focus to bless Israel, we are supporting several organizations that are being a tremendous blessing to that country. We could not do that without your generous contributions, and we felt it would be good to give everyone a report on what we are doing. That is why we are doing this podcast. We want you to be informed about and feel included with these projects that Hargrave Ministries supports on a monthly basis.

Show Notes: This podcast is a way to give our listeners an informative look into the organizations that their donations support through Hargrave Ministries. On our recent trip to Israel, we visited these organizations, starting with the AMI-Jerusalem Center for Biblical Studies and Research. The people there are like family to us and we stayed with them during this trip. They are pioneers in Jewish-Christian relations and they continue to bring people together.

Another organization we visited is Yad Eliezer, which meets a very great need by helping the multitudes of people who come into Israel from all over the world. Many of these have been forced out of their countries and have to start new lives from scratch. Yad Eliezer works to bring them out of an impoverished state and into a place where they can support and take care of themselves.

We also visited two facilities of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ). The Haifa Home for Holocaust Survivors takes care of Holocaust survivors who are unable to care for themselves. ICEJ provides for the health, financial, and social needs of these elderly survivors. Next, the Aliyah Programs project puts arms and legs on the scriptural directive that we are to participate in the return of God’s people to Israel. This project has had amazing success helping people through the immigration process.

Shiloh Israel Children’s Fund is another organization we visited. Terrorism is a reality in Israel and this fund provides therapies and assistance for children who have been traumatized by terror attacks. Another reality is that almost every family in Israel has lost someone in the defense of their country. That is why we give to the IDF Widows and Orphans Organization, whom we also met with on this trip. This group becomes involved in the lives of those who have lost husbands, wives, sons, and daughters to war and terrorism, so that they can have the eternal understanding that the nation is not walking away from them, and they are going to be helped.

The last two organizations we visited are the Jewish National Fund and the City of David Foundation. Through your donations, the Jewish National Fund has helped plant millions of trees in the country of Israel, and the City of David Foundation is unearthing amazing discoveries that are constantly confirming the validity and truth of the Scriptures.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 40:1–5. “Make smooth in the desert a highway for our God.”

• Deuteronomy 15:11. “You shall freely open your hand to your brother, to your needy and poor.”

• Zechariah 8:7–8. “I will bring them back and they will live in the midst of Jerusalem.”

• Genesis 12:1–3. “And I will bless those who bless you, and the one who curses you I will curse.”

Quotes:

• “We actually traveled during this season because of the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast that was scheduled at the first of June. And we wanted to add to that time, so we stayed about three more weeks to visit each of these organizations.”

• “You realize that those miracles were done not just by God, but by those who were His arms, His legs, the expression, the heart of what He was doing in bringing about the existence of the State of Israel and making a homeland for the Jews.”

• “This country has gone from what Mark Twain described 150 years ago as a bleak wasteland of rocky soil, hardly a tree in the country, to now 240 million trees and the entire country filled with forests and trees and farmland.”

Takeaways:

1. Isaiah 40:1–3 speaks to the Gentile Church at this time, and it gives us guidance on how we are to relate and participate with Israel and the Jewish people. In these end days we are to make a smooth path for the return of Messiah to Israel and Jerusalem, and we are to be a blessing to the Jewish people.

2. We want to make sure that we are giving to organizations that are worthy of your time and energy and involvement. We looked for organizations that we could meet with, have relationships with, see what they are doing, and make sure that the donations are being effectively used by people who honestly have it in their hearts to serve and love Israel.

3. As we come to the end-time, we see that God gathers the nations and deals with them. And part of the vision of the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast is to go out to the nations and have these prayer breakfasts in the different nations of the world, so that they have the opportunity to make their nations part of blessing Israel—that their nation may be blessed in return.

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Web Description: God is not human, and we in our human state cannot relate to Him because we broke our covenant with Him through disobedience. Christ came to reconcile us to the Father, but our communion with Him cannot be done through fleshly means or carnal ways of thinking or communicating. Only through seeking Him, meditating on Him, learning to draw from Him in the Holy Spirit can we truly have the mind of Christ. It is something that we must give ourselves to and learn to do.

Show Notes: Meditation is a term that we do not really use much in the Church. I think that is partially because it has a connotation of being from Eastern religions and people want to stay away from it. But we really do need to understand meditation and waiting on the Lord if we are going to walk with God. We need to come to the place where we know how to commune with God and receive from Him all that He has made available to us.

In our flesh, just by being human, all our awareness comes from our physical senses. They draw us to the natural world because they do not sense the world of spirit that God lives in. However, through Christ we have been born into the spirit realm as children, and we must grow in the spiritual capacities that God has provided. We will not know what God is doing, what He is saying, and how He is trying to lead us by living with our minds and senses set on the natural world. We must set our minds on the Spirit and have our senses retrained by the Holy Spirit to understand the things of God.

Paul wrote, “We have the mind of Christ.” Peter wrote, “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him.” That means those things are available for us to appropriate and make our reality on a day-to-day basis so that they manifest in our lives as they manifested in the life of Christ. When He was on the earth, He did that as a man. Therefore the door is open for us in our human life to learn to walk in the Spirit of God.

Key Verses:

• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”

• Isaiah 55:8. “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways.”

• Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

• Romans 8:14. “All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

• John 3:7. “Do not be amazed that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.”

• Matthew 18:20. “Where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:12. “We have received … the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

• 1 Corinthians 12:8. “To one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge.”

• John 8:28. “I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”

• Philippians 2:13. “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”

• Romans 12:1–2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

• 2 Peter 1:2–4. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him.”

• 1 Timothy 4:7–8. “Godliness … holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.”

• Colossians 3:1–3. “Set your mind on the things above.”

• Psalm 34:8. “Taste and see that the LORD is good.”

• Philippians 3:20–21. “Our citizenship is in heaven.”

• Romans 8:2–9. “The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.”

• Joshua 1:8–9. “You shall meditate on it day and night.”

• Psalm 1:1–3. “In His law he meditates day and night.”

• Psalm 19:14. “Let the … meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight.”

• Psalm 63:6. “I meditate on You in the night watches.”

Quotes:

• “We've got to seek God in order to be able to communicate and commune with Him and to receive from Him. And if we don't, we are stuck in this place where His thoughts are not our thoughts and His ways are not our ways.”

• “We are able to come into the knowledge of Him and to connect with Him and draw and appropriate all that He is and all that He has because He's granted it to us. He's not holding Himself back from us.”

• “By our meditation we lock into God and we download all that He's provided for us.”

Takeaways:

1. He has provided all things for life and godliness. But do we know how to download those provisions? I don't think we do yet, but we will. And I have faith that we will learn and that we will seek Him with all our hearts until we are able to hear His voice and know His will and walk in His ways.

2. We tend to take the great provisions of God and put them off into heaven or into the future and that is not the way it works. There is a way in this life that we can become a spiritual people, knowing the Spirit, understanding by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and being able to download and appropriate all the precious promises and provisions of God.

3. In Christ we have the renewal of our mind whereby we can change our focus away from this world and reach into the knowledge of Him. So the potential is absolutely there for us, but there is a discipline in our meditation and waiting on the Lord where we learn how to enter into the spirit realm and draw and appropriate all that He has for us.

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Web Description: The idea of waiting is a simple concept. You can wait for a bus or you can wait for some event. But the biblical concept of waiting on the Lord is much more than that. It is a matter of waiting for the Lord to empower you. It is how you plug into God and download from Him the power and abilities you need to be His witnesses in this generation.

Show Notes: No one could have been more prepared than the disciples of Yeshua (Jesus) before the Day of Pentecost. They had lived with Christ during His ministry, as well as during an intensive forty days following His resurrection. They had been through tremendous dealings of God in their lives. So yes, they were prepared, but on the other hand, there was something more they needed, which was the empowering of the Holy Spirit. And that was triggered by their waiting in Jerusalem for what the Father had promised.

As a believer in Christ you may be very prepared. You may have experienced many things in your walk with God. But I think there is still something we all need as individual believers and as the Body of Christ. Just like the disciples, we are still not equipped to be witnesses of the Lord without this process of waiting on the Lord and having God come and empower us. Waiting on the Lord is something we need, but it is also something that is not taught enough in the Church.

In Christianity we tend to have a negative concept of meditation because we see it as something out of Eastern religions, and so we shy away from it. Instead of that concept, however, think of it as plugging into God. Just as the disciples did, as Yeshua Himself did, we need to plug into God and download from Him all that He has given us until the things of God—the strength, the power, the gifts, the healings, and the miracles—flow from us. That is what Pentecost is about and that is what we reach into today with all our hearts.

Key Verses:

• Acts 1:1–8. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

• Isaiah 40:28–31. “Those who wait for the LORD will gain new strength.”

• Isaiah 43:19. “Behold, I will do something new.”

• John 5:26–32. “Just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself.”

• Matthew 27:52–53. “The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised.”

• John 5:15–19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”

• John 8:26. “The things which I heard from Him, these I speak to the world.”

• John 12:49. “I did not speak on My own initiative.”

• John 14:10–12. “The Father abiding in Me does His works.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:16. “We have the mind of Christ.”

Quotes:

• “There's something that comes to you that's new. It's not a refreshing of what you had. It's a new thing that God is doing.”

• “It's obvious that the works that Christ did were not human. They could not be possibly done by a human. Therefore, they had to be sourced from God Himself, and they had to be received from God Himself in order to be accomplished by Christ.”

• “The things of God are available to be imparted to us, but I think there is a way that we must reach and present ourselves before Him with this drive in our hearts to connect with Him, to plug into Him, and to receive.”

Takeaways:

1. I know that we really have walked with God, many of us for years, and we have been prepared by Him on many levels to become His witnesses and to minister and impart Him into the earth. But I believe there is a final empowering that is needed.

2. If we are going to have this empowering, we need to learn how to receive it. And it does not matter if we call it waiting on the Lord or the prayer of listening or meditation. Whatever we call it, what we are learning to do is to plug into God and to download all that He is.

3. We will receive the mind of Christ when we download it from the Lord. It is not going to mystically come into us. We will have to wait on Him and connect to Him. We are to know what God wants us to do. Christ said, “I do not do these things on My own or by My own ability.” God imparted them to Him and that is what we must reach into.

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The Temple was restored with great rejoicing. But in the midst of the rejoicing was the sound of weeping from those who remembered the First Temple, which had been filled with the glory of God. Today in the midst of the rejoicing in Christianity there is a cry because we do not have His presence as we did in the past. It is time to be honest about what we do not have and seek God for the outpourings of His Spirit and the return of His glory to the Church

Show Notes: As the foundation of the Temple was laid after their return from Babylon, we read in Ezra that the people of Judah made a great shout, but people could not distinguish the shouts of joy from the sounds of weeping. They rejoiced that the foundation was laid, but many of the older ones who had seen the First Temple wept. Haggai expressed that for those who saw the Temple in its former glory, what they saw now seemed like nothing in comparison.

There is a similar mixture of reactions in the Church today. Many are rejoicing over the new styles of worship and new styles of ministry taking place. But there are also those who have a cry in their hearts because they remember another time when people experienced outpourings of God’s Spirit and witnessed the presence of the Lord like we do not see today. To put it in the simplest of terms, there is a big difference between having the presence of God and not having the presence of God.

I feel like we have lost the presence of the Lord in a dramatic way, and we should be able to clearly look at church services and say, “In comparison to having God's presence in our midst and His glory with us, what we have now is as nothing.” But the promise in God’s Word is that the glory of the latter house will be greater than the former. Let us cry out to God as one people to see His presence come and fill the house of God, fill the Body of Christ, fill this country, fill our society, and fill the whole world.

Key Verses:

• Ezra 3:11–13. “The people could not distinguish the sound of the shout of joy from the sound of the weeping.”

• Haggai 2:1–9. “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:9. “EYE HAS NOT SEEN AND EAR HAS NOT HEARD … ALL THAT GOD HAS PREPARED.”

• Joel 2:28–30. “I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:1–3. “All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire … gave praise to the LORD, saying, ‘Truly He is good, truly His lovingkindness is everlasting.’”

• Ezra 3:11. “They sang, praising and giving thanks to the LORD, saying, ‘For He is good, for His lovingkindness is upon Israel forever.’”

Quotes:

• “We are to be contending in this day and age for the presence of the Lord in a way that many that are younger have not seen it. They don't even know what they're asking for or crying out for, and that's where they can be satisfied with what seems to be good.”

• “What was seen at the Temple when Solomon dedicated it is greater than anything that has ever been seen on the earth relative to the presence of the Lord dwelling in the earth with mankind. That is what we should be believing for, but it's very difficult to believe for that if we feel like, ‘Well, everything's fine.’”

• “The world needs the prophecies of the outpouring of His Spirit that we find throughout the Scriptures to be fulfilled in this day and age. And we say, ‘Fill your Temple, Lord. Pour out Your Spirit upon all flesh in this day.’”

Takeaways:

1. Can we just be honest with ourselves about the difference between having the presence of God with us—as happens in times of His glory and outpouring—and not having that. To me the difference is absolutely distinguishable. It is a world of difference and we need to be honest with the fact that we do not have it right now.

2. At the same time we need to recognize that we have prophecies that the glory that will come to the latter house, to Israel in the last days, and to the Church, will be even greater than what it was in the days of Solomon when God’s presence was so thick and glorious that they could not enter the Temple.

3. The priests in Solomon’s Temple could not stand to minister. In fact the priests were not needed at all because the fire came down and consumed the offerings on the altar. What is needed today is not a position thinking, but the pure presence and glory of God that rules in the services and rules in the Church.

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Should we believe for revival? To answer that question just look at Joel’s prophecy that God’s Spirit will be poured out on all mankind and note that this great outpouring is preceded by other outpourings and the restoration of Israel. Today we are seeing Israel being restored, and our generation has witnessed many revivals and outpourings of the Holy Spirit. Now more than ever, the answer is yes, we should have faith to see revivals happen in our nation and in the world.

Show Notes: Revivals and outpourings of the Holy Spirit are much needed right now and we should be praying for them to happen. We are not just hoping for something that has never transpired before. In Acts 2, we have a biblical example of the Holy Spirit being poured out on 120 people and more than 3,000 people brought into salvation. Then throughout the book of Acts, and all the New Testament Scriptures, we see this power and anointing spread to multitudes of people.

In our generation we have seen real fulfillment of God’s promised blessings on Israel, which Joel prophesied would precede the outpouring of God’s Spirit on all mankind. Also starting with the major revivals of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we have seen many movements that were true outpourings of God's Spirit. These movements were filled with people being saved, confessing their sins and reaching for purity in God, experiencing great healings, and moving in the gifts of the Spirit.

We are seeing many signs taking place in the days we live in right now. Do not be discouraged by looking at the current difficulties in the world. Revivals and outpourings have happened at times of the greatest difficulty and turmoil. That is why in our day and age we should be anticipating, hungering, and crying out to the Lord for revivals.

Key Verses:

• Acts 2:1–8. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

• Acts 1:15. “A gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons was there together.”

• Acts 1:4–8. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

• Joel 2:28–32. “I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind.”

• Joel 2:23–27. “The threshing floors will be full of grain, and the vats will overflow.”

Quotes:

• “When I look at my walk with God going back into the early seventies, I recognize that all through the time of my Christian walk and my Christian service as a pastor, it has been during this time when God was beginning to move again.”

• “In February of 1970 was the original Asbury revival that really did sweep the country because after it began at the university the young people went out all over the United States. And there were other moves of God like this.”

• “Our attention should be fixed. We should be in times of prayer, believing to see revival, believing to see things happen.”

Takeaways:

1. According to Joel’s prophecy, God will pour out His Spirit on all flesh after the restoration and the deliverance of Israel and the Jewish people. Today we are seeing Israel restored, the Jewish people returning, and the restoration of their goods and blessings which God had stripped away from them because of their disobedience. This prophecy of outpouring then becomes more important in our time than it ever has been before.

2. The movings of God have never been during times that were necessarily wonderful for God’s people. The 1970s were a time of great upheaval in America, and that was when multitudes of young people found Christ in what was called the Jesus Revolution. Our young people today are facing unheard of challenges, but that is not a reason to have unbelief. That is a reason to have faith to see God move.

3. We need revivals. We need awakenings and outpourings in this day and age. And we pray, “Father, we believe in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach that You will move in this generation. As you spoke through Joel, there will be an outpouring of Your Spirit that will be global. It will be on all flesh. You will move, and people's hearts will be transformed by Your Holy Spirit to believe in and walk with You.”

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What is the upward flow? It is a term based on the prophecies of Isaiah and Micah that Zion will be the highest mountain and all the nations will stream up to it. It is a term that expresses what we are believing for in ending the downward pull of futility that has been on all creation and the beginning of our flowing up into the presence of the Lord and up into His Kingdom. It is something that we reach into today.

Show Notes: In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve had everything provided for them, including life. As the result of their sin, God cursed the ground and humans now had to survive with great difficulty, eventually dying and returning to dust. This futility that is on creation, as Paul described it, is truly a downward pull where everything tends to disintegrate. Things that we need, including our bodies, wear out, fall apart, and stop functioning.

The promise in Romans 8, however, is that creation will be released from futility by the sons of God. Also, Isaiah and Micah prophesied that Zion will be established as the highest point and all the nations will stream up to it. The Scriptures thus illustrate how the downward pull will be replaced by an upward flow. There will be the reversal of disease and death, the end of war and of the inability for the nations to relate, and God will come to remove futility from our midst.

As we anticipate this release, we must recognize that we are in travail for it to happen. We know that we have salvation and the forgiveness of our sin, but we also understand that we live our lives daily under this downward pull, this force that is pulling everything away from God. That is why we groan, eagerly awaiting our adoption as sons of God, the redemption of our body. Let us have faith that we are in the days where we will experience the ending of the downward pull and the beginning of an upward flow into the presence of the Lord.

Key Verses:

• Genesis 3:17–19. “Cursed is the ground because of you.”

• Romans 8:18–19. “The anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.”

• Romans 8:20–25. “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.”

• Hebrews 9:28. “Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin.”

• Deuteronomy 29:5–6. “I have led you forty years in the wilderness; … you have not eaten bread.”

• Isaiah 2:2–4. “The mountain of the house of the LORD … will be raised above the hills; and all the nations will stream to it.”

• Micah 4:1–7. “The mountain of the house of the LORD will be established as the chief of the mountains. … And the peoples will stream to it.”

• Jeremiah 31:34. “‘They will all know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them,’ declares the LORD.”

Quotes:

• “Part of our salvation does include the fact that futility at some point is going to be removed.”

• “God cursed His creation because of man's disobedience. He was protecting man from getting in more trouble than he was already in.”

• “The ability to understand and grasp and hear the Word and walk in the ways of God is opened up to us as futility disintegrates and goes away.”

Takeaways:

1. In the world today, we battle the effects of futility. Futility works against us both on a natural level and on a spiritual level. It is like a tide that pulls us away from God and the things of God.

2. As the Kingdom of God draws near and begins to dawn, the tide of futility will be reversed, acting instead like a river that is pulling us up into the things of God and up into His Kingdom. It is this change of tide that we call the upward flow.

3. We are saved. But our salvation is with the hope of ending futility. Christ came the first time to deal with sin, but He will appear the second time without reference to sin, without sin being the issue. The issue will be lifting the curse that was imposed by God in hope that at some point we will come into the walk of obedience that will allow Him to remove the futility from creation.

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When we think about the Feast of Pentecost and how to celebrate it, we tend to focus our attention on the beginning of the Church. But I want to focus on our personal relationship with the Holy Spirit, on understanding the full potential of being filled with the Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, let us celebrate Christ baptizing us in the Holy Spirit and refresh ourselves in all the enabling and power that we receive when we allow ourselves to be truly filled with the Spirit.

Show Notes: The Holy Spirit coming on the Day of Pentecost exploded the Church into existence. But when we see that event as a group experience, we miss the fact that what was created in these individuals was a personal, ongoing relationship with the Holy Spirit. What transpired with them was not an experience that came and went. What happened on the Day of Pentecost was something that happened as it did with Christ, where the Spirit descended on them, filled them, and remained in them.

Whatever your experience has been up to today, reach for something greater and deeper than what you have ever had before. If you have been filled, then be filled to overflowing. If you have had some partial experience, then reach in for the fullness of the Spirit, as it was said about the Day of Pentecost. Let us believe that the Spirit can descend upon us and remain, that He will remain in us and surround us, and He will become the very center point of our walk with the Lord, our relationship with Christ.

Key Verses:

• Acts 2:1–4. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

• John 1:32. “The Spirit … remained upon Him.”

• Romans 8:13–17. “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”

• Galatians 5:18. “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the Law.”

• 1 Corinthians 12:4–14. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit.”

• Galatians 5:22–25. “If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.”

• John 14:25–26. “The Holy Spirit … will teach you all things.”

• 1 John 2:27–28. “The anointing which you received from Him abides in you.”

• 1 Corinthians 2:12–13. “Now we have received … the Spirit who is from God.”

• Luke 4:18. “THE SPIRIT OF THE LORD IS UPON ME.”

• John 14:16–17. “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, … the Spirit of truth.”

• John 15:26. “The Spirit of truth … will testify about Me.”

• John 16:6–15. “The Spirit of truth … will guide you into all the truth.”

• 2 Peter 1:20–21. “Men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.”

• Ephesians 6:17. “Take THE HELMET OF SALVATION, and the sword of the Spirit.”

• Acts 1:16. “The Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold.”

• 2 Samuel 23:2. “The Spirit of the LORD spoke by me, and His word was on my tongue.”

• Acts 4:31. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”

• 1 Thessalonians 1:5–6. “Our gospel did not come to you in word only, but … in the Holy Spirit.”

• 1 Corinthians 12:3. “No one can say, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit.”

• Ephesians 6:18. “Pray at all times in the Spirit.”

• 1 Corinthians 14:18–19. “I thank God, I speak in tongues more than you all.”

• Romans 8:26–28. “The Spirit Himself intercedes for us.”

• Philippians 3:3. “We are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God.”

• 1 Corinthians 14:15. “I will pray with the spirit and I will pray with the mind.”

• Ephesians 1:11–14. “You were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.”

• 2 Corinthians 1:21–22. “Now He … also sealed us and gave us the Spirit.”

• 2 Corinthians 5:4–5. “God … gave to us the Spirit as a pledge.”

• Matthew 4:1. “Jesus was led up by the Spirit into the wilderness.”

• Luke 4:1. “Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, … was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness.”

• Galatians 5:14–25. “But I say, walk by the Spirit.”

• John 6:27. “For on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

• Revelation 7:2–3. “… until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God.”

• Revelation 9:4. “… but only the men who do not have the seal of God.”

Quotes:

• “There's no limit on how many of these gifts and ministries can be imparted to one person. Certainly, if we look at Christ who was filled with the fullness of God by the Holy Spirit, we see that He moved in all of these things.”

• “In this day and age, we really are believing to see, as in no other time before, that the Body of Christ come forth and walk in this earth through the power of the Holy Spirit.”

• “I believe that we can reach into the fullness of the Spirit and have the Spirit allow us to walk by the Spirit and fulfill the whole will of God and be free from the down fallings of our flesh. We believe God for it, and we believe that He is in us to do it and to accomplish it.”

Takeaways:

1. We learn by the Holy Spirit to mature and come into sonship. The Holy Spirit imparts to us the gifts and the ministries that we are to walk in. The Holy Spirit imparts to us what we need to be the Body of Christ and to walk in the fullness of that. The Holy Spirit also imparts to us the fruit of the Spirit, which is the personality of Christ in God.

2. The Holy Spirit is given to us as our Teacher. He teaches us and through that teaching we abide in the Spirit. He has freely given to us all things, but we do not understand those things except by the teaching and training of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth, and He will lead us into all truth.

3. The Holy Spirit gives us the written Word of God. As we read the written Word of God, the Spirit Himself teaches us and brings the revelation to our hearts. Not only is the written Word something that comes forth from the Holy Spirit, but also the spoken and prophetic Word.

4. We learn to pray by the Holy Spirit. We do not know what the Lord wants. We do not necessarily know the perfect will of the Lord; but the Spirit does. If we want our prayer life to be that which is powerful and in the will of God, then we should pray in tongues by the Holy Spirit.

5. We worship by the Spirit, and we should learn to worship in the Spirit. When we worship in tongues, we can glorify Him in a way that our carnal mind and our limitation of human language is not able to.

6. The Holy Spirit is our guarantee that the promises of God and our resurrection life will be fulfilled. In all things, even the difficult things that we face, the Holy Spirit is there to lead us, to drive us into the whole will of God for our lives.

7. The Holy Spirit seals us to God. This becomes important in the days we are walking in. There is nothing that will happen on this earth or in the sea that precedes the fact that you will be sealed to God.

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Growing In God Podcast

During this very special podcast, Bill Hart gives us a firsthand account of the 2023 Asbury Revival. Bill is a close friend and a faithful servant of God with a prophetic insight into the Church and the coming Kingdom of God. I urge you to listen to this important message and share it with others, as Bill imparts his tremendous faith for the outpourings of God's Spirit that will be so necessary if we want to see our society return to the Lord.

Show Notes: On February 8, 2023, Asbury University had their regularly scheduled chapel service in the campus auditorium. After a sermon described as “unspectacular,” the service was dismissed and all the students left except for a dozen or so young people who stayed in the auditorium and continued praying. Soon students began to hear rumors that something special was happening there, and it was not long before there was a buzz throughout the whole university about it. By this time, students were going back to the auditorium and then by the afternoon the university canceled classes so that students could feel free to go there and seek the Lord.

The meeting in the auditorium continued nonstop after that as students were confessing their sins and opening their hearts to God. News of this event spread overnight, and people began flooding the small town of Wilmore, Kentucky, where the university is located, to experience the revival that was taking place there. As you walked into the auditorium during this ongoing service, the feeling was almost indescribable. Above the altar was a sign that read, “Holiness unto the Lord.” And that is truly what was happening there. The presence of God was so pronounced that it brought you to an instant place of repentance and humility.

This service was not anything that was driven from the platform. There were many leaders in attendance, even famous ministers from around the world, but they stayed in the background while the students led the service. It was so encouraging to see this happening among young people in light of all that has happened in our nation and throughout the world. During the last two decades, it seems like there has been an acceleration of degeneration in our young people as satan has been trying to destroy them. It was a revival at Asbury University in 1970 that helped fuel the Jesus Revolution in that decade. Let us have faith that this revival will spark an outpouring of God’s Spirit that will transform our nation.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 44:3–4. “I will pour out My Spirit on your offspring.”

• Ezekiel 44:4. “The glory of the LORD filled the house of the LORD, and I fell on my face.”

• Psalm 51:10. “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.”

• Acts 3:19–20. “Repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord.”

Quotes:

• “Give me a clean heart, Lord. Give me that union with You that only can happen when there's a willingness on my part to allow the Holy Spirit to examine me.”

• “When God does it, man cannot control it. When man controls it, God cannot be a part of it.”

• “You can have all the doctrine in the world. You can have all the principles and precepts. You can have all the teachings. You can have all those things, but the letter of the law does not produce life. It's when we encounter the living Christ by hungering and thirsting after Him and His righteousness through faith that God begins to meet us.”

Takeaways:

1. Revivals or outpourings happen at times when the world is spinning out of control because those are times when people cry out to God for Him to step in. Since human nature is so reluctant to get into God, it often takes a crisis to bring us to a place where we are desperate enough to seek the Lord. The world is in such a crisis today and many in the Body of Christ are starting to cry out to Him.

2. We have to be willing to humble ourselves to receive something fresh from God. If we think it is going to be the way we want it, it probably will not happen for us. So we start beseeching the Lord for His will to be done in our lives. In our worship we must come into a deep repentance that allows the Lord to move without any preconditions.

3. The Holy Spirit is the most capable Leader of the Church, but most of the time He cannot lead the Church the way He wants because we are busy trying to lead it the way we think He wants. Our church services can literally be transformed by becoming Spirit led encounters whenever we meet together. But it is very difficult for leaders to allow this to happen because it disrupts their programs. It requires a willingness to utterly fail because we are putting all the responsibility back on God for the success.

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Part of the purpose of Hargrave Ministries has been a tremendous drive to support the people and land of Israel and all that God is doing with them. As we return to Israel to visit the organizations we are supporting there, please be in prayer for this important ministry and for the government and people of Israel. Bless this drive to end anti-Semitism and see the Body of Christ actively showing the love of Christ to the Jewish people.

Show Notes: We will be going to Israel to visit the organizations Hargrave Ministries contributes to. Please be praying for us on this trip, for these organizations, and for the people of Israel during these challenging times. Recent political events in that country have shaken many Christians who are supporters of Israel. And I think we should be very careful to understand what our faith should be toward Israel and the Jewish people. Our support for them should not be based on natural level events or on politics. We should be backing Israel and the Jewish people because of a revelation from the Lord.

My reasons for backing Israel are biblical. I am looking at what God has said He will do and what will happen in the last days concerning Israel. And because it is God's Word, it will happen. Many Christians, however, are involved with Israel to try to convert Jews. This focus on conversion has continually led Christians to become bitter when Jews are not converted, leading to anti-Semitism and persecution. As a result, the Jewish people have come to associate conversion with persecution.

What the Jewish people need to see from Christians is first a true picture of Christ and His love for Israel. I caution us all that our faith for Israel not be rooted in anti-Semitism. In other words, if you are blessing them simply because you are trying to convert them, you have the wrong motivation. You need to be blessing them, praying for them, and ministering to them because of the pure love of Christ in your heart for them and direction from the Lord that this is what you are to do. Only then will we have the relationship God wants.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 40:1. “‘Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.”

• Jeremiah 32:36–40. “I will gather them out of all the lands to which I have driven them …; and I will bring them back to this place and make them dwell in safety.”

• Jeremiah 32:41–44. “I will rejoice over them to do them good and will faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart and with all My soul.”

• Ezekiel 36:22. “Thus says the Lord GOD, ‘It is not for your sake, O house of Israel, that I am about to act, but for My holy name.’”

Quotes:

• “We need to recognize that they do have a history that turns them off to conversion. And what they need to see from Christians is first a true picture of Christ and His love for Israel, His love for them, His love for the world.”

• “God is doing something in Israel with the Jewish people, and it's not based on their politics, how they're getting along right now, what events are transpiring on a natural level.”

• “God's covenant with Israel and the Jewish people is everlasting. He will not turn away from doing good to them, and He's going to give them a heart and they will not turn away from Him. Trust this. This is why we support Israel and the Jewish people because we know by the Word of God what God is doing and will do in these last days.”

Takeaways:

1. We should be backing Israel, praying for Israel, and believing for Israel because of a revelation from the Lord. The Scriptures point to the fact that God is doing something in Israel with the Jewish people that is not based on their politics. God will vindicate His holiness. He will vindicate His great name by what He does in the last days with Israel.

2. When you think about Israel and what you do for Israel, why do you do it? Do it for the same reason as God. He does it for His name's sake. God is bringing the Jewish people back to the land and He is blessing them and settling them with all His heart. And we likewise, with all our hearts, should be a part of everything that is ministering to Israel and bringing them back into the land and settling them there.

3. We do not even have to open our mouths to talk about Christ. We can show them the example of Him whom we know. Knowing Christ is knowing His love, knowing His grace, and knowing His fantastic promises because He has promised them wonderful things; and He said that He will not relent from fulfilling that great Word.

Resources:

https://www.hargraveministries.org/projects/

https://www.hargraveministries.org/podcasts/bruce-larson-interview-about-israel-episode-81/

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From May 7 through May 28 there will be a time of fasting and prayer for Israel and Jerusalem. The idea was conceived by Mike Bickle, the pastor of International House of Prayer in Kansas City. Visit the website www.isaiah62fast.com to access information about this event, including a six-minute video by Pastor Bickle. I encourage you to participate in this prayer event if you feel led. I think this is a wonderful opportunity to help create the burden for Israel and the Jewish people within the worldwide Body of Christ.

Show Notes: The goal of the Isaiah 62 Fast (www.isaiah62fast.com) is for more than a million people to be in prayer 24 hours a day for 21 days to see the fulfillment of God's promises to Israel. Started by Pastor Mike Bickle it has already grown to hundreds of thousands of participants. This event will begin on May 7 and end on May 28, which is the Day of Pentecost.

On Pentecost there will be a gathering at the southern steps of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, which I am hoping to attend. Hargrave Ministries had already scheduled a trip to be in Israel during that time, and we plan to be part of the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast that will take place on the first of June. I am excited to connect with this focused time of prayer because I believe it will expand the burden for the Jewish people and Jerusalem within the Body of Christ. Many Christians still do not have the revelation of what God is going to do in the end-time surrounding Israel and the Jewish people.

I think it is a fantastic event and we should look to see it be tremendously successful, not only in reaching the Body of Christ, but also in the effectiveness of the prayer itself for Israel and Jerusalem. Isaiah 62 contains many beautiful promises over Israel, and now the Body of Christ from around the world is part of their fulfillment by being the watchmen on the wall to remind the Lord what He has said concerning Israel.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 62:1–12. “On your walls, O Jerusalem, I have appointed watchmen; all day and all night they will never keep silent.”

• Romans 11:17–21. “You, being a wild olive, were grafted in among them and became partaker with them of the rich root of the olive tree.”

• Psalm 102:13–18. “This will be written for the generation to come, that a people yet to be created may praise the LORD.”

Quotes:

From the Isaiah 62 Fast website (www.isaiah62fast.com):

• “A collaboration of several thousand ministries—including Lou Engle, Jason Hubbard, Mike Bickle—are calling 1 million believers to participate in a global solemn assembly (May 7–28) to fast in various ways and to pray for the Lord’s purposes for Israel AND to ask Him to raise up 100 million intercessors for Israel according to His promise in Isaiah 62:6.”

• “This will be the first time in history that far more than 1 million will continue 24 hours a day for 21 days in praying for God’s promises for Israel. The uniqueness of this prayer initiative is itself a sign of the times and an acceleration of God’s set time for a generation yet to be created to engage together in His purposes for Israel (Ps. 102:13, 18).”

Takeaways:

1. The potential impact of this on the Jewish people, the State of Israel, and the city of Jerusalem is going to be amazing when they learn how many believers are crying out to God for the fulfillment of the prophecies over them to come true at this time of Pentecost.

2. We work a lot with Israel and the people who live in Israel and Jerusalem, and they are always touched by the love and the drive that Christians have for them. It gives them a strength in their own faith and their own belief in the Word. And we want to do this with this event.

3. It is guaranteed by God that His promises to Israel will be fulfilled. He will never reject His people no matter what they have done, no matter what they are doing today. He will make a new covenant with them, and they will all know Him from the least to the greatest. He will forgive their sins. He will bring them forth as the nation that He has always promised that they would be in His presence to stand before Him.

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May 4, 2023, is the National Day of Prayer, and I am believing for a tremendous response in our nation on this day and not something that makes a few glib prayers asking for blessings. I am looking for a response the Lord wanted from His people, where we humble ourselves and seek His face and turn from our wicked ways that He might heal our land. I am looking for a response in line with Abraham Lincoln’s Proclamation of a National Fast Day, where we cry out to God to end the division that is destroying this country.

Show Notes: A resolution adopted by the Senate on March 3, 1863, asked President Lincoln to proclaim a National Day of Prayer and Fasting. This resolution was signed by Lincoln on March 30, and the proclamation he wrote is something I personally found impossible to read without weeping. Even today we have a National Day of Prayer, occurring on May 4 of this year. And my prayer is that our Senate, our Congress, our president—our nation—could return to the principles expressed in Lincoln’s proclamation with the same passion and determination to engage in a committed time of prayer to the Lord.

Lincoln’s proclamation was written in 1863 during the Civil War. We may not be having an actual civil war, but we are just as divided as they were at that time. This division is a dangerous condition because a nation divided against itself will not stand. If we cannot reverse the course we are on, this nation will no longer be able to stand in the place it has been to the world as a blessing, as a peacekeeper, and as a purveyor of Judeo-Christian values that are so important for humankind to be living in.

Second Chronicles 7 provides an example of how a nation is to pray when it has lost the favor of God. And God promises that if we seek Him, if we humble ourselves before Him and turn from our wicked ways, He will forgive our sin and heal our land. On this National Day of Prayer let us as humble ourselves and repent of every way in which we have been taken captive by other things and served other gods. God restore Your presence to this country.

Key Verses:

• 2 Chronicles 6:36–42. “If they return to You with all their heart … then hear from heaven.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:1. “When Solomon had finished praying, … the glory of the LORD filled the house.”

• 2 Chronicles 7:11–14. “If … My people who are called by My name humble themselves … then I will hear from heaven.”

• Isaiah 24:5–6. “The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants. … Therefore, a curse devours the earth.”

• 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Quotes:

Taken from “Proclamation Appointing a National Fast Day,” by Abraham Lincoln. http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/fast.htm

• “And whereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.”

• “We have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us! It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.”

• “All this being done, in sincerity and truth, let us then rest humbly in the hope authorized by the Divine teachings, that the united cry of the Nation will be heard on high, and answered with blessings, no less than the pardon of our national sins, and the restoration of our now divided and suffering Country, to its former happy condition of unity and peace.”

Takeaways:

1. America, as with other nations, is facing the consequences of its actions. The devastation that we are facing does not even need to be attributed to God's judgment. Do not blame it on God. Open your eyes and heart to recognize that the consequences we face are the results of our own actions. They are simply a natural response like the laws of physics. They are transpiring because of what we have done and what we continue to do.

2. On this National Day of Prayer, let us focus on fervent repentance and confession to the Lord of our sins, our disobedience, and our falling away from Him and His Word.

3. Do not forget the promise that the Lord made to Solomon. If His people humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways, He will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. We also know that if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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God's purpose is for us to enter into His Kingdom, and we do not want to be worn out by the battle and give up before the Kingdom is given to the saints. We want to make it there, and one of the greatest keys to making it is the fact that the joy of the Lord is our strength. We need to know how to replace our worn-out faith with the joy that comes from the Lord; it is something deep within our being that enables us to live life the way we need to in this transitional time.

Show Notes: What is behind all the turmoil in the world? As we read in the book of Daniel, the Kingdom will be given to the saints of the Highest One; therefore, satan’s tactic is to wear out the saints. All the events that are affecting our lives come down to the fact that satan is working to wear out God’s people and make us want to give up. This is a very real problem that we face, and I have been seeking the Lord for answers. How do we find the inner strength so that we are not worn down, and we do not give up or lose out in the days ahead?

I believe the answer is in God’s Word: The joy of the Lord is our strength. But it is difficult to find joy in this world in which joy is being taken away. Where do we draw this joy of the Lord? How do we receive it? I think one way we receive it is through knowing His salvation. The experience of salvation in and of itself ministers joy to us. Like David, we can repent of the ways we have failed Him and fallen short and let the Lord restore to us the joy of His salvation.

We can also seek to be refreshed and renewed in the Holy Spirit because in the Holy Spirit there is joy. We can seek to behold the Lord, to be with Him, and to be in His presence because in His presence is fullness of joy. I want us to be able to counteract this wearing out of the saints by knowing how to appropriate the joy of the Lord. We can do this. Let us search the Scriptures to learn all the ways that the joy of the Lord is imparted and begin to exercise them.

Key Verses:

• Daniel 7:24–25. “He will … wear down the saints of the Highest One.”

• Daniel 7:26–27. “The dominion … will be given to the people of the saints of the Highest One.”

• Nehemiah 8:10. “The joy of the LORD is your strength.”

• Isaiah 35:10. “They will find gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing will flee away.”

• Psalm 51:11–12. “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.”

• Joel 1:12 (KJV). “Joy is withered away from the sons of men.”

• Jeremiah 15:16. “Your words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart.”

• John 16:21–22. “Your heart will rejoice, and no one will take your joy away from you.”

• Psalm 16:11. “In Your presence is fullness of joy.”

• 1 Peter 1:8. “You greatly rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory.”

• Exodus 33:18. “Then Moses said, ‘I pray You, show me Your glory!’”

Quotes:

• “There should be a joy that we live in, knowing that we have salvation in God.”

• “Being immersed in His Word should be the joy and delight of our heart. It should minister joy to us as we're reading the Scriptures.”

• “We are in the time of the birthing of the Kingdom of God into this age, and there will be anguish and there will be pain, but there will also be the joy that comes as the Kingdom manifests and the Lord returns.”

Takeaways:

1. Search your Bible for every occurrence of the word joy. Take the time to read the verses that have to do with joy and study its different aspects, both in how joy is lost and how it is restored. Learn how to appropriate that joy.

2. We are not ignorant of satan's devices. We know the aim of the spiritual warfare he brings. It is to wear us out. It is to make us give up. It is to make us quit and lose our faith.

3. Therefore, we must be driven to pursue the joy of the Lord. We have to know how to pursue His joy. We find His joy in His presence. We find His joy in His salvation. We find His joy in His Word. We find it through the members of the Body of Christ, as Paul wrote about many times.

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Many today are concerned about the disturbing patterns of behavior in society. My main concern is the fact that the lifestyle, mentality, and paradigms of this me-generation are absolutely in conflict with the Kingdom of God. And these patterns are driven by satan’s deception to bring destruction to this generation. Our prayer must be that the Lord breaks this deception and judges the spiritual forces that are behind it.

Show Notes: Yeshua (Jesus) told a parable about a nobleman who went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself and then return. But his citizens hated him and said, “We do not want this man to reign over us.” I think this is very much a cautionary parable for us today because I believe we are living in a generation when society is saying, “We do not want Christ to rule over us. We want to be our own lord. We want to serve ourselves.”

This mentality is absolutely set that nothing be more important than self. It says, “Nothing can rule over me. Even my biology can't rule over me. Scientific facts can't rule over me. Even my gender is flexible according to whatever I happen to feel.” You have to see how absolutely perverse that is, flying in the face of the reality that God is your Creator. He created your gender. He created your gifts and abilities and the enabling of those abilities. He is the One who gave you free choice and not you yourself.

No matter how wonderful we think we are as human beings, we were created to serve and worship God. That was Christ's purpose in bringing salvation and then being seated at the right hand of the Father, where He reigns until every enemy is brought into subjection. And just as Balaam tried to bring the people of Israel to the place that God had to destroy them, satan wants to manipulate people today into destruction by becoming God’s enemy. Let us pray that people wake up, heed the warnings of the Scriptures, and return to the Lord as He brings His Kingdom on the earth.

Key Verses:

• Revelation 7:17. “God will wipe every tear from their eyes.”

• Revelation 19:16. “He has a name written, ‘KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS.’”

• Ephesians 1:20–22. “He … seated Him at His right hand. … And He put all things in subjection under His feet.”

• Hebrews 10:12–13. “He … SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD … UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:25. “He must reign until He has put all His enemies under His feet.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:28. “The Son Himself also will be subjected to the One who subjected all things to Him, so that God may be all in all.”

• Luke 19:11–14. “A nobleman went to a distant country to receive a kingdom for himself, and then return.”

• Luke 19:26–27. “These enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and slay them in my presence.”

• Numbers 24:10. “I called you to curse my enemies, but behold, you have persisted in blessing them.”

• Numbers 31:16. “These caused the sons of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to trespass against the LORD.”

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is … against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.”

Quotes:

• “People are being literally programmed to resist and reject the Kingdom of God and to reject the very premise of the Kingdom of God, which is there's something greater than you.”

• “People do not want anything or anybody to be over them. Or they do not want themselves to be in submission or subjection to anyone else, rules or regulations, or whatever. And the problem with that is that is not the Kingdom of God.”

• “The focus of eternity is not about you. The focus of church is not supposed to be you. It is supposed to be Christ who came to win our salvation as Messiah, but also to be exalted after His resurrection as Lord at the right hand of the Father.”

Takeaways:

1. This me-generation may reject being subjected to the Lordship of Christ but remember what the Scriptures say: He will reign until He has made every enemy the footstool of His feet, and everything will be brought into subjection to Christ and His Lordship. The American ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been perverted into a me-worshipping generation, and we pray that be ended.

2. The Kingdom of God will manifest, and it will be in direct opposition to this mentality by imposing the Lordship of Christ. My prayer is that the Lord will break the deception and judge the principalities that are set to see this generation destroyed.

3. Remember, this is how satan works because of his inability to destroy us. He manipulates people so that God becomes their enemy and must judge them for their disobedience.

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We wonder, “Is our prayer effective? Is it getting through to God? Is He hearing? Is He seeing the depth of wickedness, darkness, and evil in the world that is swallowing up the children of God, oppressing them, and holding them in bondage from serving Him as they would?” The Passover teaches us that God does hear our cry; He does come down; and He does deliver us.

Show Notes: When we read about the Passover in Exodus, we find two dynamic elements. One is the cry of God’s people going up to Him and the other is God hearing their cry and coming down. An important lesson for us is that when God comes down everything changes. Today we are crying out for what some term a revival or an outpouring. To me it is a cry for His return to earth. It is a cry for His presence. As at the first Passover, it is His presence that will change everything.

The Passover represents the moment at which God came down and engaged in the situations surrounding His people. He engaged in their bondage. He engaged in their sin and their lack of faith and obedience to Him. He dealt with everything and everybody. He dealt with Moses. He dealt with Israel. He dealt with Pharaoh. He dealt with the Egyptians and the gods of Egypt. Everyone is dealt with when God enters the scene.

This principle applies to our crying out to God in this day. As it was with Israel, God’s presence with us does not mean our circumstances are immediately better because God begins to deal with us as well as with everything that is oppressing us. He is going to deal with everything that must be dealt with in order to accomplish His will in the earth. And we need to be ready to participate in that process. We must remain faithful and live in faith knowing that God is here to accomplish His perfect and complete work in bringing His Kingdom and our deliverance.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 64:1–4. “Oh, that You would rend the heavens and come down.”

• Exodus 3:6–9. “I have … given heed to their cry. … So I have come down to deliver them.”

• Exodus 4:1. “What if they will not believe me or listen to what I say?”

• Exodus 4:10–12. “Now then go, and I, even I, will be with your mouth.”

• 1 Thessalonians 5:23. “May your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

• Exodus 5:1–2. “Pharaoh said, ‘…I will not let Israel go.’”

• Exodus 5:6–9. “You are no longer to give the people straw to make brick as previously.”

• Exodus 5:19–23. “You have made us odious in Pharaoh’s sight.”

• Exodus 12:12–14. “You are to celebrate it as a permanent ordinance.”

• Exodus 12:29–32. “Rise up, get out from among my people, both you and the sons of Israel; and go.”

• Exodus 14:19. “The angel of God, who had been going before the camp of Israel, moved and went behind them.”

• Exodus 15:1–2. “Then Moses and the sons of Israel sang this song to the Lord.”

• Exodus 19:9. “I will come to you in a thick cloud, so that the people may hear when I speak with you.”

• Exodus 19:16. “There were thunder and lightning flashes and a thick cloud upon the mountain.”

• 2 Corinthians 7:1. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit.”

Quotes:

• “It's been a long time since He's been on the scene, and I think we lose the concept of really what it is to have God present.”

• “God never comes just to change the outward circumstances that we live in. God comes to change us in our heart towards Him.”

• “As He begins to move, yes, He's come down, but He has come down to move through you.”

Takeaways:

1. When God comes down, it is impossible for things to stay the same. One aspect is that circumstances do not always get better in the moment. We will go through God's dealings, His purifying, purging, and refining of our hearts as He removes all defilement of flesh and spirit from us.

2. When God comes down the gods of this age will be judged. The gods that hold us in bondage, the false gods that are being served and worshipped in the world will be judged. And we will break into a worship we have never known before. It will be a new day of constant worship as we find in heaven.

3. When God comes down there is a visible, tangible presence of God as it was with Israel in the wilderness. Their lifestyle completely changed as they lived in His presence. This Passover let our cry be, “God come down.” Let that be our cry every day until we see His presence literally manifested in this world and our lifestyle is living with Him.

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To me the Passover is one of the greatest joys that we have. To be included in and celebrate this tremendous time is especially meaningful to our Christian experience, and I think that every Christian needs to have a revelation of it. The Passover is one of the key moments that brings the whole story of God's salvation, the experience of His people, and the Body of Christ into a tremendous understanding.

Show Notes: The Lord commanded the continual observance of the Feast of Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread, as well as giving detailed instructions for how they should be celebrated. As a Christian believer, you may be saying, “What is the significance for us in all these unique instructions? It’s not really making sense to me.” Well, keep studying it because it will. As you study the elements of this feast time, you become aware of their significance to your salvation in Yeshua (Jesus).

I encourage you to dig into all the elements of the Passover because they teach us the deep meanings surrounding our Savior and the sacrifice He made for us on the cross. On the night of Passover, a lamb was slain; its blood protected the children of Israel from judgment and death, and they were delivered from bondage. Christ our Lamb was sacrificed on Passover night and protects us from eternal judgment and death and delivers us from bondage. Then just as the sheaf of first fruits was waved during the Passover season, Christ the first fruits was resurrected during this season.

I am only touching the surface of this deep, meaningful time and celebration. To get the whole concept of it, read Exodus chapters 1–12. Also use a concordance or a word search and study all the places where the word Passover is found in the Scriptures. Another thing you can do is find a synagogue that would be open to visitors coming to their Seder meal. Partake with them, learn about the Seder and how it is celebrated today by the Jewish people, and receive its significance in your life and your communion with the Lord. Use this time to study and immerse yourself in this great Feast of Passover.

Key Verses:

• 2 Peter 1:12–13. “I will always be ready to remind you of these things.”

• Exodus 12:1–10. “They shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel. … They shall eat the flesh that same night.”

• Exodus 12:11–13. “When I see the blood I will pass over you.”

• Exodus 12:14–20. “You shall celebrate it as a feast to the Lord; throughout your generations.”

• Exodus 12:29–36. “The Lord struck all the firstborn in the land of Egypt.”

• Exodus 12:38–41. “All the hosts of the Lord went out from the land of Egypt.”

• Leviticus 23:4–11. “You shall bring in the sheaf of the first fruits …; on the day after the sabbath the priest shall wave it.”

• Numbers 9:1–5. “They observed the Passover … in the wilderness of Sinai.”

• Numbers 28:16–17. “On the fourteenth day of the first month shall be the Lord’s Passover.”

• Deuteronomy 16:1–8. “At the place where the Lord your God chooses to establish His name, you shall sacrifice the Passover.”

• Luke 2:41–42. “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.”

• John 2:13–17. “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”

• John 2:23–25. “He was in Jerusalem at the Passover.”

• Matthew 26:1–2. “The Passover is coming, and the Son of Man is to be handed over for crucifixion.”

• Matthew 26:17–30. “The disciples did as Jesus had directed them; and they prepared the Passover.”

• Luke 22:7–8. “Then came the first day of Unleavened Bread on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed.”

• Read Matthew chapters 26–28; Mark chapters 14–16; Luke chapters 22–24; John chapters 12–13.

Quotes:

• “The Passover is significant in the Hebrew Scriptures; but as we move forward into the New Testament, it's also significant in the life of Yeshua.”

• “I'm telling you, there are so many aspects of Passover that have these deep revelations and significance to them.”

• “I want this Passover to be one of the greatest experiences you have as you grow in your relationship and your walk with God.”

Takeaways:

1. It was not a mistake that the children of Israel were in Egypt and became slaves. Joseph brought them into Egypt, and they were saved alive during the famine. Following the death of Joseph, a Pharaoh rose up who did not know him and began to enslave the children of Israel.

2. In bringing them out of Egypt, God did not just deliver His people from bondage, He brought judgment on the gods that the Egyptians worshipped and showed that they were not gods at all. He continued to do that through Passover to prove that He is God Almighty, the Creator of the universe, truly the One and only sovereign God who is to be worshipped.

3. During the final plague of death on the firstborn, Israel was protected from death by placing the blood of the lamb on their doorposts, and they were delivered from their bondage to Egypt. We as Christians place the blood of Christ upon the doorposts of our hearts, and we are protected from the death of eternal judgment and delivered from the bondage of a life to sin. We are freed to serve the Lord with all our hearts, to live for Him, and to live with Him.

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Christianity has taught a gospel of salvation, but the reality is that it is the gospel of the Kingdom. When He was resurrected, Christ not only brought salvation but also ascended to the right hand of the Father and was given all rule and authority so that all creation would be subjected to Him. Becoming a Christian is more than being saved; it is the introduction to the process of becoming subjected to His Lordship.

Show Notes: I feel that there is not enough teaching on the Kingdom of God in Christianity, and believers do not have a real grasp of what the Kingdom is all about. The emphasis tends to be on preaching salvation, and therefore the gospel and salvation are seen as one and the same. Yet the New Testament Scriptures have a very clear emphasis on the Kingdom of God. We know that Yeshua (Jesus) is the Messiah bringing salvation, but John the Baptist, Yeshua Himself, and the disciples came preaching the gospel of the Kingdom.

Later Peter and Paul proclaimed Yeshua as Lord and King as well as Messiah, their emphasis being on His Lordship. They did not preach that once you are saved you have attained to the pinnacle of a relationship with the Lord and nothing more is needed. Salvation is what qualifies you to become a part of His Kingdom, but once you enter into the Kingdom of God, into the Lordship of Christ, then the issue becomes your obedience to His Lordship.

Christ Himself came into perfect subjection to the Father, whereby all authority was given to Him over heaven and earth. Everything must come into subjection to Christ. That was the purpose of the Father in giving Him that dominion. Rather than emphasizing salvation above all else, we as Christians need to understand that a relationship with Christ means maturing into a complete subjection to Him as King and Lord over our lives.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 3:1–2. “John the Baptist came, preaching … ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.’”

• Mark 1:14–15. “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

• Luke 16:16. “The gospel of the kingdom of God has been preached, and everyone is forcing his way into it.”

• Matthew 4:23. “Jesus was … proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease.”

• Luke 9:1–2. “He sent them out to proclaim the kingdom of God and to perform healing.”

• Acts 28:23. “He was … solemnly testifying about the kingdom of God and trying to persuade them concerning Jesus.”

• Acts 28:30–31. “He … was … preaching the kingdom of God and teaching concerning the Lord Jesus Christ.”

• Matthew 24:13–14. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world … and then the end will come.”

• Acts 2:34–36. “Know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ.”

• Romans 10:9–13. “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, … you will be saved.”

• Matthew 28:16–20. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

• Daniel 7:13–14. “To Him was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations and men of every language might serve Him.”

• Ephesians 1:20. “He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:22–28. “Then comes the end, when He hands over the kingdom to the God and Father.”

• Hebrews 5:8. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”

Quotes:

• “Salvation is obviously a part and necessity of the Kingdom of God, but it is not the whole of the Kingdom.”

• “You cannot separate His Lordship from the experience of salvation.”

• “Our salvation is our introduction to our being submissive to Him as the Lord in our lives.”

Takeaways:

1. The preaching of the gospel was the announcing of the Kingdom of God to come. Yeshua the Christ, the Messiah, is the Lord and ruler over the Kingdom. That does not necessarily apply to the salvation of the believer; it applies to the reigning of His Lordship over the believer.

2. Salvation is a necessary experience for someone to enter into the Kingdom of God, not to be confused with the fullness of the Kingdom of God. This does not mean that the Kingdom has already come or is fully manifested. It means that the door is open for you to be included in the Kingdom and now begins your process of perfection and submission.

3. The cross and the resurrection of Yeshua did not only provide salvation for mankind; it placed all things in subjection to Yeshua, establishing His Lordship over all creation.

4. The Messiah will exercise that Lordship until all things are in subjection to that Lordship, and then He will subject all things to the Father so that God is all in all and over all.

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The book of Daniel contains visions of spiritual forces causing climactic events in the earth. But our focus cannot be on those events. Whatever we are facing, whatever is coming upon the earth in our time, the main point of these visions is that the saints of the Highest One will receive the Kingdom and will possess the Kingdom for all ages to come. Our focus must be on knowing the Lord. That will turn loose the greatest force in the days ahead.

Show Notes: The stories, the visions, and the prophecies that we read in the Scriptures are written as examples to us and have practical application for us today. The book of Daniel, for one, contains several visions that show the progression of spiritual battles, both natural and spiritual, down through the ages up until the possession of the Kingdom. Instead of trying to interpret these visions, I want to focus on the practical instructions they provide for us as believers in the spiritual battles we face today.

In his visions Daniel saw four beasts coming up out of the water. And we know that these four beasts represent four kingdoms or governments that will be on the earth. These governments are seen as battling against Israel and against God in the establishment of His Kingdom. We can look in terror at these kingdoms that are coming upon the earth to control and to destroy, but the true emphasis of these Scriptures needs to be burned in our hearts.

The emphasis of these visions is not on the difficult events taking place in the earth. The emphasis is on the fact that the saints possess the Kingdom. Because of this, satan comes directly against the saints to wear us down. Therefore, we must press in to know the Lord because those who know the Lord will be strong, will take action, and will have the discernment and understanding to help others make it through these times.

Key Verses:

• 1 Corinthians 10:11–12. “They were written for our instruction.”

• Daniel 7:3–14. “His dominion is an everlasting dominion which will not pass away.”

• Daniel 7:15–18. “The saints of the Highest One will receive the kingdom and possess the kingdom forever.”

• Daniel 7:19–25. “That horn was waging war with the saints and overpowering them until … the saints took possession of the kingdom.”

• Daniel 11:32–33. “Those who have insight among the people will give understanding to the many.”

• Daniel 12:9–10. “Many will be purged, purified and refined, … but those who have insight will understand.”

Quotes:

• “If we know the Father, if we know the Son, if we know the Holy Spirit, we are going to be able to display strength, and we are going to be able to take action.”

• “The faith is knowing that God is setting up His Kingdom, and whatever we're experiencing for right now is very short-lived because the emphasis and the focus of this whole time is the judgments to come as God sets up his Kingdom on the earth.”

• “The enemy's forces are going to be ignorant, but God's people are going to be strengthened and have insight.”

Takeaways:

1. The Messiah will come during this time and establish His Kingdom on the earth, but there will be battle leading up to that Kingdom, and it will be specifically focused on wearing out the saints through lies and deceptive words. People will be corrupted and be turned to godlessness by virtue of this deception. Yet the people that know their God will display strength and take action; they will stand firm and prevail, and they will have insight into what God is doing.

2. The people who have insight will cause others to understand. It will be a great time of impartation and teaching and seeing many come to the truth. There will be true prophets and vessels of God's truth and wisdom who will be able to impart to many the truth of God's Word.

3. There will be persecution against God's people, but the Lord will strengthen us and allow us to walk in faith during these days no matter what we face. We thank the Lord for the instruction and wisdom contained in His Word that enable us to walk through these times as faithful saints of the Lord.

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Daniel can teach us to pray because he knew how to pray. In his prayer and his positioning before God, he had all the elements that God had taught Solomon—who taught the people how to pray when they were in a time of God’s judgment and wrath against them for the way that they had refused Him and refused His Word. I believe we are in similar times, and therefore we need to apply the words of Daniel to our hearts and learn how to intercede in this way before God.

Show Notes: God spoke to Solomon, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will heal the land.” Daniel followed this instruction when he saw his land devastated and ravaged and the people taken into captivity. He longed to see that time of disaster turned into the time of restoration that God had promised. So he humbled himself, fasted, and prayed for God to forgive Israel.

Devastations happened to Israel because of their actions which God had warned them about. Today, just as it was in Israel before the devastation Daniel witnessed, we live in an era when people are mocking the Word of God and mocking those who are messengers sent by God. The Word of God is scoffed at and rejected. It is refused by all aspects of our society from our courtrooms to our classrooms. Our land is being devoured by many things, and pestilence, like COVID-19, is touching every nation in the world.

We need to be the Daniels in our generation who humble ourselves before God, who pray and seek His face. I think we need to be seeking God like never before. With a force in our hearts and spirits, let us believe for our prayers to work today in Jerusalem and in Israel for His chosen people, as well as for the Church, the Body of Christ, in America and the nations around the world. We ask the Lord to grant the prayer of His servant Daniel that it be a teaching to us and that we learn how to pray in the same manner to bring His grace and compassion into our lives.

Key Verses:

• 2 Chronicles 7:11–14. “If … My people … humble themselves and pray and seek My face.”

• 2 Chronicles 36:11–21. “They continually mocked the messengers of God, despised His words and scoffed at His prophets.”

• Daniel 9:1–19. “O Lord, hear! O Lord, forgive! O Lord, listen and take action!”

Quotes:

• “There is a level of repentance I think that we all need to enter into in this day. I think we need to seek His face about our wicked ways. What is the wickedness that you're pointing to God that you want us to get rid of?”

• “I just want to somehow connect with Daniel and with his heart because we think of him as a prophet, but he was a man of prayer. He was a man who sought the Lord.”

• “He is a God of great compassion. And we cry to Him to hear, to forgive, to listen and to take action for His own namesake. And we ask that He not delay because of the need of the people called by His name and those who are believers in Christ His Son.”

Takeaways:

1. The judgments happened to Israel because of actions the people were warned against and the fact they did not learn the lessons they were given to prevent such a fate. I believe we in the United States have had similar lessons and similar warnings. And if we are not already experiencing the consequences, we are certainly close to experiencing them.

2. I believe that we find ourselves today in the circumstances described in 2 Chronicles chapter 7. And I believe our answers are found in the instructions the Lord gave Solomon concerning how to pray during circumstances brought about by people’s rejection of God and His Word.

3. I also believe that Daniel’s prayer recorded in Daniel chapter 9 teaches us exactly how to follow the instructions God gave Solomon that His people humble themselves and pray and seek His face and turn from their wicked ways.

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What do you have in your hand that you can give the Lord? Mordecai simply gave of his honesty. He reported what he knew was wrong. Moses just had a staff. The prophet's wife who pleaded with Elijah only had a jar of oil. The lad who gave his food to Yeshua (Jesus) only had a little basket of bread and fish. Yet the Lord used these simple gifts to perform great miracles. Your personal walk with God, your commitment to do what is right, your gift, no matter how small, is all God needs to make a miracle.

Show Notes: The events that transpired during the days of Esther, which we celebrate at the Feast of Purim, saved the Jews from annihilation. What was accomplished was truly miraculous, but how it was accomplished is a lesson for us. The miracle happened because of simple human actions. Mordecai was not trying to be someone special when he informed the king of the plot against him. He simply did the right thing, and his actions ended up being the foundation of the miraculous deliverance of the Jewish people.

The Lord asked Moses, “What is in your hand?” All Moses had was a simple wooden staff, but God used it to bring about the deliverance of Israel. When Yeshua needed to feed a hungry multitude, a boy offered the only food he had, which was a few loaves of bread and fish. That simple gift became the basis for the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. A widow only had a jar of oil to give to Elijah, but God multiplied that oil until it was enough to pay her debt and sustain her and her family for the rest of their lives.

As we go through the events of our lives, there are times when we are in need of God’s help, but He does not seem to be visibly or physically there. Many times we look for miraculous signs, or we look for divine intervention, but our release often does not happen in the way we expect. It happens, as it did with Mordecai, through our own actions and out of our own moral character as we try to live our lives as God is leading us. It comes down to something very simple. What you have in your hand, what you have to give, no matter how insignificant in your own eyes, can initiate a miracle.

Key Verses:

• Esther 2:21–23. “The plot became known to Mordecai and he told Queen Esther, and Esther informed the king in Mordecai’s name.”

• Esther 6:1–14. “It was found written what Mordecai had reported.”

• Esther 7:1–10. “They hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.”

• Esther 8:1–2. “The king took off his signet ring which he had taken away from Haman, and gave it to Mordecai.”

• Esther 9:1–3. “The Jews themselves gained the mastery over those who hated them.”

• 1 Corinthians 15:57–58. “Your toil is not in vain in the Lord.”

• John 6:5–14. “There is a lad here who has five barley loaves and two fish.”

• Exodus 4:1–4. “The Lord said to him, ‘What is that in your hand?’ And he said, ‘A staff.’”

• 2 Kings 4:1–7. “Your maidservant has nothing in the house except a jar of oil.”

Quotes:

• “What we give, what we do with our hands, what actions we take can be what God uses down the road to perform a miracle.”

• “What we have may seem like nothing. It may seem like a dead staff, but you put it in God's hands, and it becomes a powerful element to bring about the miracle deliverance that He is looking for.”

• “Our labor is not in vain, and the little that we have can be the source of a miracle in God's hands.”

Takeaways:

1. Purim is a story about natural acts on a human level that result in a miraculous deliverance. How does the natural level ever in our minds produce the miracle that we need or that the world needs? Yet that is the lesson of Purim. It is a lesson we should understand every day that the little things we do may seem insignificant and certainly not enough when we offer them to the Lord. But they are all God needs to bring miracle deliverance.

2. Many Christians serving the Lord struggle with satan’s accusations: “What you're doing is in vain. It won’t produce anything. It won’t accomplish anything for you, for the Lord, or for the Kingdom.” That is a lie! What you have, what you are, and what you are doing is more important to the creation and to the building of God's Kingdom than you can imagine.

3. Do not despise what you have to offer. It is enough for God to perform miracles. No matter how difficult it may seem, your labor is not in vain. Your life is not in vain. Your gift is not in vain. Go ahead, give the Lord your loaves, your staff, your oil. Let Him create the miracle.

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Many Christians may know about the Feast of Purim and the story in the book of Esther on the origin of this feast, but Christians rarely celebrate Purim or spend much time with the book of Esther. That is a shame because the story of Purim is one of the most meaningful teachings from the Scriptures about spiritual warfare, and it has great significance for us.

Show Notes: We read in the book of Esther that Haman manipulated the king to issue a decree of death against the Jews. And as humans we have labored under the decree of death that was first placed on Adam and Eve because of sin. This may have been manipulated by satan, but it was the King’s decree. It was God’s declaration of judgment against them.

Esther appeared before the king to plead for the lives of her people. By extending his scepter to her, the king received her into his presence, and he responded by sentencing Haman to death. Likewise, Yeshua (Jesus) was accepted into the presence of God and His plea for our lives was granted, resulting in the judgment of satan.

The important lesson from the book of Esther is that, even though Haman was killed, the destruction against the Jews was still in motion because it was the king’s decree and could not be reversed. Therefore, the king gave Esther and Mordecai his signet ring and told them to destroy those who would destroy them. As Christians, we must recognize that the futility begun by the King’s decree is set to destroy us, and we must use the signet ring, the mighty name of Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Christ, to execute the judgments written and end that which is destroying the world.

Key Verses:

• Book of Esther. “Summarized throughout the podcast.”

• Esther 3:13–15. “Letters were sent … to kill and to annihilate all the Jews.”

• Esther 4:11–17. “I will go in to the king, … and if I perish, I perish.”

• Esther 7:1–10. “They hanged Haman on the gallows which he had prepared for Mordecai.”

• Genesis 3:13–23. “The Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden.”

• John 3:16. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son.”

• Matthew 3:13–17. “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”

• Matthew 24:22. “No life would have been saved.”

• Hebrews 7:25. “He always lives to make intercession for them.”

• Ephesians 4:8. “He led captive a host of captives.”

• Revelation 12:7–9. “Satan … was thrown down to the earth.”

• Esther 8:3–12. “A decree … sealed with the king’s signet ring may not be revoked.”

• Romans 8:20–24. “Subjected to futility, … in hope that the creation itself also will be set free.”

• Philippians 2:9–11. “At the name of Jesus every knee will bow.”

• Luke 10:17–19. “I have given you authority … over all the power of the enemy.”

• Romans 16:20. “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet.”

• Psalm 149:8–9. “To execute on them the judgment written.”

Quotes:

• “I hope you see the significance of this victory that is Purim. The reason we have a Savior today is because of this tremendous victory that took place under Esther and Mordecai against the decree of annihilation that was brought about by Haman.”

• “All of this has so much to do with us because we know that our hope is in the King. Our hope is in the Lord of Lords. Our hope is in the Creator of the universe who rules in heaven. And before Him we have to make our cry.”

• “I encourage you to study and get involved with Purim. Have a celebration with your family, with your community, with whomever you’re with in faith. Find yourselves celebrating this tremendous feast of Purim, this time of deliverance from annihilation.”

Takeaways:

1. Through the pleading of Christ before the King in His throne room, we see that satan is brought into judgment. Plans that he had for the destruction of mankind are brought back upon his own head.

2. Christ’s coming dealt with the perpetrator of the decree of annihilation against humanity, but that decree has left behind a minefield of destruction that we must deal with.

3. Yeshua ascended to the right hand of the Father, and He has given us the authority and ability to go in His name to proclaim the ending of satan’s plan. We are the ones who will crush satan under our feet.

4. It is only through the voicing of the name of Christ that we will see these death sentences removed until all humanity rises up with the cry in their hearts to receive God and His work and what He has done for them in salvation.

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Daniel’s prayer literally initiated a war in the heavens between the Lord's heavenly host and the principalities and powers of Persia and Greece. This was not just any prayer he was voicing. It was intercession driven by his seeking God to understand a prophecy of Scripture and see its fulfillment. We should pray with the same drive to see the fulfillment of prophecies that apply to us in our generation.

Show Notes: Sometimes when we pray, we feel like the answers to our prayer are not really forthcoming. We struggle on a human level to understand what is withholding the answers. We can draw insight from Daniel, who fasted and prayed about a prophecy by Jeremiah regarding events that Israel faced in his day. God sent the answer from the first day he prayed, but it took twenty-one days for God’s messenger to reach Daniel because the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood this messenger to block him from fulfilling what God sent him to do.

Daniel was sensing that the prophecies were beginning to reach a point of fulfillment and that it was time for these things to come to pass. Therefore he was fasting and praying for greater understanding and knowledge of how to apply these prophecies to the children of Israel in his generation. What kinds of prayer should we be engaged in? I think, like Daniel, we should be praying over the prophecies that we know apply to our generation and understand what is taking place in the spiritual battle that our prayers initiate.

How do we know what prophecies of Scripture apply to our generation? Just look at the prophecies being fulfilled right now as the children of Israel return to their land. Yet many prophesies for this time seem to be delayed and hindered. We should be praying, “Lord, give us more understanding. Show us how these things are to be fulfilled and when they are to be fulfilled. Give us the understanding of Your Word and how it applies to this generation so that we, like Daniel, might begin to fast, to pray, to prophesy, to speak and respeak these Words and have faith that You are bringing Your Kingdom.”

Key Verses:

• Daniel 10:12–14. “I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me.”

• Daniel 10:19–21. “I shall now return to fight against the prince of Persia; … the prince of Greece is about to come.”

• Matthew 24:32–36. “Learn the parable from the fig tree. … But of that day and hour no one knows.”

• Daniel 9:1–3. “I, Daniel, observed … the word of the Lord to Jeremiah. … So I gave my attention to the Lord God.”

• Jeremiah 25:8–12. “When seventy years are completed I will punish the king of Babylon.”

• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is … against the rulers, against the powers.”

• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

• Ezekiel 11:17–20. “I will give them one heart, and put a new spirit within them.”

• Jeremiah 32:37–41. “I will … faithfully plant them in this land with all My heart.”

Quotes:

• “Christ told us to ask and keep on asking. That's not just repetitive prayer. That's not just vain repetition. That is recognizing that in the spirit realm there may be this battle transpiring.”

• “Why are you talking about Israel? I need to know what is important to me. Well, believe me, Israel is important to you because what fulfillment happens for Israel happens for us as believers in Yeshua in this age.”

• “He had to show us mercy. We must come to the fullness of that mercy, and then we will minister mercy along with God to Israel.”

Takeaways:

1. Daniel was not just praying any prayers. He was not praying for his personal life or his family. He was concerned about the Word of God. He was concerned about the prophecies of Scripture and what they said about Israel and about the circumstances he and Israel were in.

2. There are prophecies that apply to us in our generation and that should be the focal point of our prayer. We must begin to pray about the fulfillment of prophecies that we are expecting and anticipating. And it is these prayers over prophecy that initiate the wars in the heavens we read about.

3. We do not want to engage on a natural level. Our battle is in the heavens, and as mature believers we must know and understand how to engage in that battle. We want to learn how to pray in a way that tears down the principalities and powers, the spirits of wickedness in the heavenly places that prevent His Kingdom from coming.

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When Daniel prayed, he did not see immediate fulfillment in the physical realm. But his prayer initiated a spiritual battle against the principality of Persia who hindered God’s messenger that brought the answer for Daniel. Like Daniel, our prayers can impact the spirit realm as they expose for judgment those principalities and powers that resist God’s Kingdom in the earth. And like Daniel, God brings us wisdom and understanding of His will in answer to our prayers.

Show Notes: Are our prayers really effective and how effective are they? Obviously, we are concerned about the radical changes in society over the last years, and we are facing a world that is far different than the one we knew in the past. What should our response be as Christians? First we must understand that as humans we tend to look at things on a natural level. And when we do, we tend to react and respond on a natural level. But that is exactly what Ephesians chapter 6 tells us not to do because our battle is not with flesh and blood. It is not on a natural level.

As believers, we find ourselves thrown into the midst of spiritual battle. Even though Christ has all authority in heaven and on earth, that authority must be executed until every enemy is defeated. This is necessary for us to understand if we are to understand prayer, our part in prayer, and how our prayer affects the Kingdom of God. A good example from the Scriptures is Daniel’s prayer about the promise of Israel’s return from captivity. He was praying about something physical, but his prayer started a war in heaven against the spiritual forces that were opposing God’s will.

We must understand that our prayers are more than just words. They have the potential of releasing judgment on the rebellious principalities and powers that oppose the will of God. You could easily ask, “How can I fight these powerful beings and forces when I am just a human being?” It is true that we cannot engage these kinds of forces in ourselves. But our prayers can literally initiate warfare in the spirit, and that warfare will be used to bring every enemy under the feet of Christ until every enemy is abolished, and He returns to establish His Kingdom on this earth.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 6:10–13. “Our struggle is … against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces.”

• John 19:30. “He said, ‘It is finished!’”

• Hebrews 10:12–13. “Waiting … until His enemies be made a footstool for His feet.”

• Matthew 28:18. “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth.”

• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

• Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.”

• Ephesians 6:14–18. “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit.”

• Matthew 24:22. “No life would have been saved; but for the sake of the elect those days will be cut short.”

• Daniel 10:12–21. “I have come in response to your words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was withstanding me.”

• Revelation 12:3–4. “A great red dragon … swept away a third of the stars of heaven.”

• Daniel 7:10. “Myriads upon myriads were standing before Him.”

• 1 Peter 3:22. “Who is at the right hand of God, having gone into heaven.”

• Isaiah 5:16. “The Lord of hosts will be exalted in judgment.”

Quotes:

• “When we really understand these Scriptures, we also understand that we as believers—though our salvation is won for us and though satan is a defeated foe—there is still a war going on.”

• “We must be so given in this generation to knowing and rehearsing and memorizing and living by the Word of God.”

• “God answers prayers. He sends messengers to accomplish it, to accomplish those prayers, to answer us, to bring wisdom.”

Takeaways:

1. We must understand the power of prayer. Sometimes we question its effectiveness in our lives or if God is even hearing our prayers. But we need to understand that the power of prayer must be discerned in the spirit to see what is transpiring as a result of our prayers.

2. As God is sending through answers to our prayers and moving to manifest His Kingdom on the earth, then everything that is blocking it manifests itself because it is drawn out against what God is trying to do. The rebellion of those spiritual forces is revealed, and they can be fought and abolished by God’s spiritual warriors, the archangels.

3. For Christ to return, every enemy must be made the footstool of His feet and our prayer plays a major role towards the fulfillment of His authority over every principality, every power, and every force of wickedness. They will be brought down, and He will return with the Father, the leader of the hosts of heaven.

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Without a doubt, we are living in the end times, which means our choices are becoming more and more critical as we near the Lord's return. We cannot listen to the lies of satan. We cannot listen to the confusion of mankind. We must be careful to seek God about the choices that need to be made. Our good and loving God invites us to look to Him when making these important decisions in our lives, to ensure that we are heading in the right direction and not being deceived by satan’s tactics.

Show Notes: God is making us come to grips with the fact that, yes, we have a free will, but that free will means we must make a choice. And the reality is that there are consequences because of the choices we make. As we read repeatedly in the Scriptures, God gave Israel a choice between serving Him and serving other gods, and He made very clear to them the consequences of their choice. Choosing to serve Him meant life and blessing. Choosing not to serve Him meant death and a curse.

God gave Adam and Eve a choice, and their choice to disobey God resulted in death and a curse for all mankind. We also find that satan was at work to deceive them and bring confusion about the true consequences of their choice. Likewise, these days will be a time of great deception as satan seeks to confuse, bring lies, and contend with us so that in our humanity we make wrong choices and wrong decisions.

As it was with Adam and Eve, today we are facing many choices that will have grave and deep consequences in our lives and in the days of the Kingdom. So we want to be able to make the right decisions. We want clarity in those decisions. It is urgent then that we begin to pray and prophetically proclaim the binding of satan, the binding of his lies, and the binding of his confusion. The Word of God tells us very clearly that we can bind on earth what has been bound in heaven. We must bind the strong man and his lies and his deceptions that are going on at this time.

Key Verses:

• Joel 3:12–15. “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision!”
• Deuteronomy 30:19–20. “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live.”
• Joshua 24:15. “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve.”
• 1 Kings 18:21. “How long will you hesitate between two opinions?”
• Deuteronomy 6:13–17. “You shall fear only the LORD your God. … You shall not follow other gods.”
• Genesis 3:1–5. “You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, ‘You surely will not die!’”
• Luke 22:42. “Yet not My will, but Yours be done.”
• Matthew 16:18–19. “Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven.”
• Matthew 12:28–29. “He first binds the strong man.”
• Mark 3:27. “He first binds the strong man.”
• Revelation 12:9. “Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was thrown down to the earth.”

Quotes:

• “What we realize when we make a choice is that we are not only choosing whatever that decision is, but we also, whether we recognize it or not, are choosing the consequences.”
• “We're to mature in God and we're to make right choices in God based on the free will that we have been given.”
• “The choices must be made, but we need to seek God and in our seeking God prophesy that the lies of satan will be bound, that the confusion of satan that he's trying to bring against us will be bound, that the way he's trying to force us into making wrong decisions will be absolutely taken away.”

Takeaways:

1. God has given us a free will, and that free will must be exercised by our choices. And God is encouraging us, even requiring us as He did through Moses and Joshua and Elijah, to choose if we will serve Him or not.
2. We do not make simple choices between one thing or another. We are agreeing to the fact that we will invoke the consequences of those choices. And we must be aware that satan is bringing deception and confusion to cloud our choices and blind us so that we do not recognize the consequences we are facing.
3. Let us pray as we have never prayed before. Let us rise up and speak the Word of the Lord to bind the strong man and his deceptions, so that we as the sons of God, as the Body of Christ, are those who bring down the plots and plans of satan so that we make clear choices to serve the Lord.

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Have you ever thought, “There were so many great times of God’s moving in which I could have been born. I could have lived when Yeshua (Jesus) was on the earth and been one of His disciples. Why did I wind up in this generation?” Believe me, God did not make a mistake. You are not here by accident. You are in the right place at the right time, and He is preparing you to be part of accomplishing His plan and purpose in this generation.

Show Notes: None of us would question that there was a purpose in the life of Yeshua. None of us would question the fact that there was a reason behind the life of the disciples. It is easy for us to recognize that God had a purpose for them, that God was planning their lives, that God was making their steps to be what they needed to be in order for them to be usable in His plan. Yet it is difficult for us to recognize that God is doing the same with us.

God has a purpose in this generation, and it is not by accident that you are a part of this generation. God has placed you here because it is His will and His heart to use you, to use me, to use the Body of Christ as those who will accomplish His will in the earth. Connect with this reality in your relationship with God. Pray, “Father, You brought me into this earth during these days, during this generation. Just as You carefully led and worked with those I read about in the Scriptures, You are leading and working with me.”

God will do many things in this generation. And I think we need the attitude that this may be the greatest generation that has ever walked the face of the earth as far as serving God is concerned. He is working with you. He is creating you. His salvation is something that was provided for you specifically, and connecting with that personal focus of God in your life is essential to grow and mature and move into the reason God has you here.

Key Verses:

• 1 Corinthians 15:8. “Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared to me also.”
• Acts 13:36. “David … served the purpose of God in his own generation.”
• Exodus 3:4–10. “I will send you to Pharaoh, so that you may bring My people, the sons of Israel, out of Egypt.”
• Luke 1:38. “Behold, the bondslave of the Lord; may it be done to me according to your word.”
• Hebrews 5:8. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Quotes:

• “There's got to be something of a trust in God and a trust in His plan, and a trust in His purposes for us as individuals.”
• “God will do many things in this generation. And I think we need that attitude: this may be the greatest generation that has ever walked the face of the earth as far as serving God is concerned.”
• “This is your moment. God has a plan and purpose for you. He will use you to do great things for His Kingdom.”

Takeaways:

1. God is our Father. He does not send us unprepared into the things that He is commissioning us or directing us to do. He has not only prepared a generation for us to walk in, He has prepared us for that generation.
2. There was much that Christ experienced. There was much that Moses experienced. All those we read of in the Scriptures who were mightily used by God went through many things that are not outlined in the Scriptures. They went through much in the way of preparation, and I believe we are experiencing that same thing.
3. He is preparing us and equipping us to carry the anointing and the gifts that He has in His will for each one of us and how we will impact this earth and this age. We are here like David to serve the purposes of God in our generation.

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Before they entered the land, Joshua admonished the children of Israel that they needed to decide, right then and there, if they would serve the Lord. He recognized that what happened in the nation of Israel would be determined by the decision of the people, not just the decision of their rulers. When the Day of the Lord comes and the nations are brought to the Valley of Decision, we the people of those nations must recognize that our decisions about serving the Lord will ultimately determine the direction of our nation and the resulting consequences.

Show Notes: As the Day of the Lord comes into the earth, we see God dealing with the rulers of the nations, calling them individually to account for their relationship with Him and the decisions they have made. But there is a deep connection between the rulers whose decisions result in consequences for a country and the people of the country who elected those leaders. In the world today, the direction that most nations eventually take, and the resulting consequences, is more guided by the people of a nation than by its leadership.

Look at the United States. We are like the children of Israel who God established by giving them a land that was already a blessing. All they had to do was live in that land with a heart and a drive to serve the Lord. God has given us a land in this country that already had blessings upon it. All we had to do was decide how we lived in this land. What would we do? How would we treat those who were already inhabiting the land? What would our lifestyle be and what choices would we make in our relationship with the Lord?

Do you feel like we are losing the blessings that we had? Why? Well, for one thing, we have let government push God out of our schools. For the last fifty years, we have not imparted our faith and the Word of God to the generations that have grown up in America. If we could not do it in our schools, we should have done it more in our homes and in our churches. Now we are seeing the consequences of our decision unfold in society. Now, more than ever, is the time to decide that we will wholly follow the Lord, that we will bind His Word to our minds and our hearts and our homes and teach it to our children.

Key Verses:

• Joel 3:12-14. “The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”
• Joshua 24:14–15. “Choose for yourselves today whom you will serve.”
• Deuteronomy 11:1–16. “Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that you do not turn away and serve other gods and worship them.”
• Deuteronomy 11:17–25. “You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul.”
• Deuteronomy 6:5. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.”
• Matthew 22:37. “And He said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’”
• Deuteronomy 11:26–28. “I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse.”
• Revelation 7:3. “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads.”
• 2 Chronicles 7:13–14. “If … My people … humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways ….”
• Ezekiel 11:17–21. “Remove all its detestable things and all its abominations from it.”

Quotes:

• “Maybe you feel your vote doesn't count, but your voice does. And to speak up and speak into what is transpiring is very important.”
• “We the people need to decide if we want the blessing or the curse, and we need to make that decision recognizing the consequences.”
• “We need to choose a different way to walk as believers in this nation. We've had the blessing of the Lord, and we're in the process of seeing it removed.”

Takeaways:

1. God deals with the leaders of nations and there are consequences on those nations by virtue of their leadership. However, we must recognize that the direction most nations are moving today is more influenced and guided by the heart of the people of those nations than by its leadership.
2. The covering that has been over us is removed if we, as the people, do not make the decision with all our hearts to seek God and walk with Him. If we can come together and remove the detestable things, the abomination from our midst, He will give us a new spirit and a new heart. He will enable us to walk by His statutes and keep His ordinances and see returned to us the blessings of God in our generation.
3. We need the sealing of God’s Word on our foreheads. We need it written on our hearts and on our souls. We need to write the Word of God on our doorposts. When we come into our homes, we need them to be the house of God. We need to see a change in the way that we, as believers, have walked. We need to make a decision that has the power to speak to our nation and direct it in the will of God.

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It may seem like world leaders today are getting away with just about anything, but we should not assume that God's hand is not on the leadership of the nations. There needs to be more of a faith in our hearts, more of a trust in our spirits that God is in control of those who are in leadership positions. God is bringing all the nations to the valley of decision, and the leaders of those nations will face the consequences of how they have related to Him and to His people.

Show Notes: We are commanded to pray for those in authority (1 Timothy 2:1-2). We are not to judge or condemn them because we must all give an account before God. At the same time, our prayers for world leaders must include the fact that they too will be held accountable. God is not missing what is going on in the earth. He is aware of the wickedness. He is aware of the situations on national levels. It may appear otherwise at times, but God is bringing the nations to a place of decision in this day, and that process will turn loose His ability to act regarding leaders.

We have some good examples of this in the Scriptures. God had anointed Saul king of Israel, but when Saul was disobedient that anointing and spiritual protection was removed. Finally, Saul was driven by an evil spirit and eventually destroyed. In another example, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon refused to honor God and was driven by a spirit to be nothing more than an animal. He learned his lesson, repented, and was restored to his throne.

We see leaders today who are obviously driven by demonic spirits, and they will know the consequences of their decisions. God is bringing all the peoples of the nations to a place of decision and judgment in the Day of the Lord. He deals with everyone, both in and out of leadership, but especially with those who have the responsibility before Him because no authority exists other than what is given by God. Let us have faith and trust that God really is in charge, and He is carrying out His will in these last days to accomplish His purposes and bring about His Kingdom.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
• Romans 14:10–12. “Why do you judge your brother? … Each one of us will give an account of himself to God.”
• Joel 3:12–14. “The day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision.”
• 1 Samuel 16:14–16. “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord terrorized him.”
• Daniel 4:30-37. “The Most High is ruler over the realm of mankind and bestows it on whomever He wishes.”
• Romans 13:1. “There is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God.”
• Philippians 2:10–11. “Every knee will bow, … every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.”

Quotes:

• “God has given authority, does give authority, and is involved in the leadership of the nations in ways that we can't see or necessarily imagine. And each one is going to stand before God and give an account for themselves and for their actions.”
• “God withdrew from Saul. And God will withdraw His protection and His anointing and His presence from people who are rebellious and not giving Him the glory and following His will.”
• “God will bring judgment. He is sorting out everyone, including the leaders of the nations.”

Takeaways:

1. As you watch leaders and rulers today, it seems like they can get away with anything and do anything they want, without consequence for their actions or their thinking. But the Scriptures show us that God deals with those in leadership and will hold them accountable.
2. As believers, ours is a place of prayer and intercession. We live knowing that we are in the days that Joel spoke of when God is bringing all the nations to a place of decision. No national leader in this day will be able to find a way around the reality of what God is doing in bringing all mankind to decision and judgment.
3. The decision is about Him and about serving Him and how we relate to Him as individuals. As the Scriptures tell us, we will all stand before Him and He will be the one who judges and determines the consequences of the decisions we have made.

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We may face difficult times ahead. We may face real persecutions and serious tribulations. Where do we find an anchor? Where do we find something to hang onto? Where do we find our protection? We find it in the Word Christ has given us. We have certainty in the fact that the Father will answer the prayers of His Son. And today we have a Bodyguard. The Father is surrounding us as a barrier and a wall because Christ asked Him to keep us from the evil one.

Show Notes: Yeshua (Jesus) gave us the Word of the Father. And in these days when He has ascended to the right hand of the Father and we no longer see Him, we have His Word contained in the Scriptures. They are our commandments. They are the guideposts of how we live, how we walk, what we think, and what we do. And it becomes of primary importance in our lives that we read them, that we understand them, that we believe them, and that they become our strength.

In John 17 we have Christ’s prayer to the Father, and I think we can put tremendous weight and confidence in those verses because the Father will answer the prayers of His Son. We will go through many things, but we have confidence that we have the Father’s protection and His immunity because Christ asked the Father to keep us from the evil one. Christ did not ask the Father to take us out of the world but to leave us in the world as His testimony, just as He lived in the world as the testimony of the Father. And He intended that we would have the same protection from the Father that He had.

The Father protected the Son and covered Him while He was in the flesh, making sure that He was not killed or destroyed before He could fulfill the will of God. Therefore, by His prayer, Christ established a protection for us so that we too can accomplish the will of the Father in our lives without being touched by that which would seek to destroy us. Do you ask, “What do we have in this generation?” We have everything that Christ asked the Father to give us so that we may be empowered, individually and collectively, to manifest Christ in His many-membered Body and do His will in the earth.

Key Verses:

• John 17:10-15. “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”
• John 20:21. “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
• Zechariah 2:5. “‘For I,’ declares the Lord, ‘will be a wall of fire around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.’”
• Luke 4:29-30. “But passing through their midst, He went His way.”
• John 17:16-26. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them.”
• Ephesians 2:6. “Seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
• Matthew 6:6. “Go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
• Psalm 40:7-8. “Behold, I come; … it is written of me. I delight to do Your will.”

Quotes:

• “We have sanctification by the Word of truth that He's given us. These Scriptures are going to have the power to bring us into the sanctification that Christ has won for us.”
• “You have a bodyguard. You have one who is protecting you and keeping you in the name of Christ.”
• “For His namesake, because He asked the Father, we will be one. And as we become one, what is going to happen? The world will believe that the Father sent Christ as Messiah into the world, and that is going to trigger some of the greatest salvation experiences and times of revival that the world has ever seen.”

Takeaways:

1. As we enter troubled days, the Scriptures must become an anchor to us. Yeshua said, “I gave them Thy Word,” and in that Word we will find the answers we need. The Scriptures do not just point to the things that God did in the past or the things that will happen of the future. They talk about today and the promises and provisions that we in this generation have from God to walk in and become.
2. We must learn to walk experientially in all that the Lord has provided for today. Don’t make them doctrinal concepts or things that we are reading in a Book. Let the Word of God live for you. Let it live in you and let it become your reality. The power of that Word should manifest in and through our lives as we walk with Him.
3. There are many promises and prophecies about the future, but we will not reach the future if we do not understand what the Lord has provided for us to live in today in order to walk in all of His will. As the Father sent Christ into the world, so Christ has sent us into the world. Because of that, we should come to Him and the Father and say, “It is written of us—we come to do Your will.”

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The period from the ascension of Christ to the present hour has been labeled the Church Age. In reality it should be called the Age of the Holy Spirit. Yeshua (Jesus) did not tell His disciples, “The Father will teach you how to have good churches.” He promised them they would be endued with power by the Holy Spirit and be His witnesses in the earth. And my New Year's resolution is to change my emphasis from Church first to being filled with the Holy Spirit first and endued with power to be His witness today.

Show Notes: The Church Age is the term most widely used to identify the years since the ascension of Christ until now. This label, I think, misdirects the focus of our faith in this generation. When Yeshua (Jesus) prepared His disciples for His departure, He did not give them instructions about Church. He taught them about the Holy Spirit directing them and guiding them and about their being witnesses in all the world to make disciples of the nations.

Christ could have said, “Go to Jerusalem and focus on gathering everyone together who believes in Me and establish an order and a structure for the Church.” But He did not do that. He said, “You are to go and receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you shall be My witnesses.” Eventually those who had this experience were drawn to assemble together. But their assembling together was secondary to their individual experience of having this promise of the Holy Spirit resting upon them.

We have tended to lose this emphasis. To us being led and taught by the Holy Spirit has become secondary to being part of a church and being led and taught by the leaders in the church. I think we need to refocus our emphasis, and that is what I want to do this year. I want to focus myself on being filled with the Holy Spirit, not dependent on others, not dependent on something that is not provided by the Father and Christ to me through the Holy Spirit. If we can do that as individuals, I believe the Church will have the power and witness in the earth that Christ promised to His disciples.

Key Verses:

• Luke 24:49 (NKJV). “Tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”
• Deuteronomy 23:3. “No Ammonite or Moabite shall enter the assembly of the LORD.”
• Matthew 16:15-18. “Upon this rock I will build My church.”
• Matthew 18:15-17. “If he refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.”
• Acts 1:6-8. “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses.”
• John 14:16-18. “You know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”
• Jeremiah 31:31-34. “They will not teach again, each man his neighbor and each man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they will all know Me.”
• John 14:26. “He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
• John 16:6-15. “It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you.”
• John 7:37-39. “The Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.”

Quotes:

• “What was necessary and what He had promised them was the Holy Spirit, not Church.”
• “How do we learn about Christ? How do we know Christ? How do we understand Christ? By the Holy Spirit that comes to us.”
• “It's endless what the Lord gave to us when he gave us the Holy Spirit upon His departure, and I don't want to make it secondary to anything else.”

Takeaways:

1. The ecclesia, what we call the Church, was initiated by virtue of the experience the disciples had of being filled with the Holy Spirit and being endued with the power of the Holy Spirit to be His witnesses. I fear that we have lost this emphasis within the Church because our focus is on the Church as an entity, rather than on being an assembly of people who are filled with the Holy Spirit.
2. When Yeshua used the Greek word ekklesia, He was not speaking in terms of our understanding of Church. He was speaking in terms of the assembly of the Lord or the assembly of Israel. And He applied it to those who would be taught and directed by the Father through the Holy Spirit.
3. How much are we depending on the Church to provide for us what Christ has already provided through the Holy Spirit? We are to know the Lord. We are to be taught of the Lord. We are to hear His voice. We are to be directed in all things by Him. All that the Father has given to Christ should be disclosed to us. If we are honest, we must admit we do not really have that, certainly not in its fullness.

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The biggest problem the children of Israel had in the wilderness was not their lack of faith that God could do great things. It was their inability to trust that He would take care of their personal needs. A recent experience exposed this problem in my own life, and I think Christians should face this reality. With all our faith in the greatness of God, there is still something in us that does not trust that He will meet our needs. This new year let’s see that change and learn to trust Him with all our hearts.

Show Notes: During the Feast of Tabernacles this year two recent messages became very meaningful for me personally. These messages are a blog titled “Do You Trust Him?” and a study guide titled “Do You Trust God's Motivation?” Both messages are available on this website, and I encourage you to read them. As I was reading these messages, something happened that made Tabernacles come alive to me. My refrigerator broke at a crucial time and there seemed to be no way to fix it. “What does a broken refrigerator have to do with Tabernacles?” you might ask.

At Tabernacles we remember how the children of Israel saw God do many mighty things as He delivered them out of Egypt. Once they were in the wilderness, however, they had a big problem with God. And that problem was not their lack of faith in His power, it was their inability to trust that He would care for their simple daily needs. A broken refrigerator made me face my own need to trust God on a personal level.

As Christians, as believers in Yeshua (Jesus), we have seen God’s great salvation and deliverance in our lives. We have faith that God is able to do all things, yet there is still something deep in our spirits that does not trust Him to take care of the little things in our lives. This year I want God to take out of me every inability to trust Him even in the simplest ways.

Key Verses:

• Deuteronomy 1:26–35. “But for all this, you did not trust the Lord your God.”
• Numbers 14:11–12. “How long will they not believe in Me, despite all the signs which I have performed?”
• Psalm 95:7–11. “Your fathers tested Me, they tried Me, though they had seen My work.”
• Hebrews 3:6–11. “your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and saw My works for forty years.”
• Hebrews 4:1–11. “Therefore let us be diligent to enter that rest.”
• Proverbs 3:5–6. “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.”
• Isaiah 26:3-4. “Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord, we have an everlasting Rock.”
• Matthew 7:24. “Everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them, may be compared to a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
• Philippians 4:19–20. “My God will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.”

Quotes:

• “Every time we fail by not trusting, I think we invoke the Lord's anger towards us as Israel did.”
• “We still exist in the place where we need to enter God's rest, and we enter God's rest through our ability to trust in Him with all of our hearts.”
• “I know we have faith in the Lord for the big things. But going forward I want to trust Him that He supplies all of my needs in everything that I face, that it's He who leads my path.”

Takeaways:

1. He provides the fire by night to keep us warm. He provides the cloud by day. He provides the water, the food, the covering, the shelter, the defense—all that we need. But it is born out of our ability to trust Him.
2. This year, in all the difficulties we are beginning to face in the world, we need a rock to build our house upon. We need not to be moved by the things that will come against us. And that is born out of trust in the Lord.
3. Lord, Your Word states that we are to trust You with all our hearts and not lean on our own understanding. Let this be the focal point of our lives this year. We trust You to provide it and create it within us.

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The symbolism that most defines Christmas is the nativity scene. And the nativity scene is about the reality that Christ, the Messiah, the Savior, the King of Kings, was born and lived as a human being. At Christmas we are not celebrating His divinity. We are celebrating His humanity. We are celebrating the fact that He came to earth as man who went through everything we go through and is thus able to lead us and help through all those things.

Show Notes: At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Yeshua (Jesus). When we do that, we are celebrating the birth of a human baby. Yet in our Christian faith, we think of Christ as a divine figure who always moved in a divine way. But the Christmas story is the opposite of that. The Christmas story tells us that He was a vulnerable baby who had to be cared for and protected. He had to be raised and taught like any human child.

As Christians we tend to put Christ so far above us that He is unattainable in today's life. We think, “He was perfect, but I am caught in my flesh, and I can't get out of it.” That viewpoint is unscriptural. The Scriptures teach us that the Messiah is a human being. Yeshua was not born perfect. He learned obedience through the things that he suffered. He was made perfect by what He went through, just as we are being made perfect because of what we go through. God is taking us through a process of perfection, and what He has given us in Yeshua is a Messiah who enables us to walk through what we could not walk through ourselves.

When we come to Yeshua as our Messiah, we can draw on the fact that He lived in the days of His flesh. He could not be the Messiah without that. He had to share in flesh and blood. He had to partake in the same things we partake in. He had to feel what we feel. He had to experience what we experience because He is our help. He is the aid to those who are tempted because He faced it all. He overcame the circumstances, the stress, the oppression, the futility of living in this earth where satan surrounded all that He did, seeking to kill Him every day. Therefore, He is able to help us through all those things in our daily life.

Key Verses:

• Read Luke 2:1–52.
• 2 Corinthians 5:16. “We have known Christ according to the flesh.”
• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
• Acts 1:6. “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
• Hebrews 2:14–18. “Since the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise also partook of the same.”
• Hebrews 5:7–11. “Although He was a Son, He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
• Hebrews 4:14–16. “We do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses.”
• Hebrews 7:24–25. “Therefore He is able also to save forever those who draw near to God through Him.”
• Romans 8:27–39. “Those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”

Quotes:

• “If we are going to truly celebrate the concept that is called Christmas, it is about Him being born. It is about Him living in a human life.”
• “I know we will live in the days of glory. I know that we will live with Him in His Kingdom. But right now, in the days of our flesh, we need help.”
• “He lived in the flesh. And in the flesh, He was successful in being a human who related to God, who was filled with the Holy Spirit, who was enabled to move and enact and bring the will of God into the earth.”

Takeaways:

1. Let us celebrate Christmas this year, not as we have in the past, but instead let us identify with our Messiah as a human being—a son of man.
2. Let us celebrate that Yeshua did not exercise His divinity during His days on Earth, but He was tempted in all things and felt our every human suffering. There is nothing we go through in our lives that He cannot relate to.
3. Let us celebrate that Yeshua lives to intercede for us every day and minister to us in our time of crisis and need. He is our Messiah. Our lives are meant to be lived in Him and through Him.

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In Romans 12, Paul exhorts us not to be conformed to this world. That is what Hanukkah is all about. It expresses the refusal of the Jewish people to be converted into something that was against the will of God and against the teachings of God. We as believers in Yeshua (Jesus) should have the same resistance to the culture that is set to move us away from the Scriptures, away from our Christian values, and convert us to a different way of life. Hanukkah is not a substitute for Christmas. It is an observance very applicable to Christianity today.

Show Notes: Many people think that Hanukkah is just a celebration for Jewish people to compete with Christmas during December. That is not true. Hanukkah existed before the celebration of Christmas. It is a historically based and scripturally based event that was observed by Yeshua (Jesus). Biblically, Hanukkah is referred to as the Feast of Dedication because it celebrates the rededication of the Temple after the Maccabean revolt when the Jews recaptured Jerusalem, recaptured the Temple, and purified it from its defilement.

At a time when Israel was under the suppression of the Seleucid Empire, Antiochus IV (known as Epiphanes) determined to wipe out all the practices and beliefs of the Jewish people and replace them with the paganism of the Greek people. A small band of Jewish men and women who refused to be Hellenized and converted into pagans rose up and fought against the armies of the Greeks and won, taking Jerusalem, and cleansing and rededicating the Temple. This spirit is what Hanukkah celebrates.

That is why I think it is important for Christians to celebrate Hanukkah. To celebrate Hanukkah is to follow after those who refused to be converted to the paganism of the Greek culture. We likewise should refuse the demands of today's culture and the pressures of society that would force us to deny our faith and convert us to the paganism of today's world, which is quickly abandoning the Scriptures, abandoning morals, abandoning pure thought, and the right ways of life. We, as believers in Christ, along with the Jewish people, should shine as a light on a hill, as those who hold forth the Word of God and the promises of God and the prophecies to come.

Key Verses:

• John 10:22-23. “At that time the Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple.”
• Romans 12:1-2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
• Matthew 5:11-16. “You are the light of the world. … Let your light shine before men.”
• Matthew 24:22. “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved.”

Quotes:

• “We are the salt of the earth. We are to be the light. And that is what you can say about those who participated in the Maccabean Revolt, that refused to be removed off of their faith.”
• “We are believers, and we are not to be conformed to this world. We are not to be conformed to its cultures, its beliefs, and its ways of life when they are contrary to God and to His Word.”
• “Let us rededicate and purify everything that has been touched and destroyed during these days under the attempts of satan to bring about his purpose.”

Takeaways:

1. Hanukkah reminds us that as believers, we are not to be conformed to this world. We are not to be conformed to its cultures, its beliefs, and its ways of life when they are contrary to God and to His Word.
2. Hanukkah reminds us that we are to be a light to this world—we should shine brightly as a light on a hill. We cannot let our light go out, and we certainly cannot live in fear and intimidation and hide our light under a bushel basket.
3. Hanukkah reminds us that we are the salt of the earth. What we are to do today is preserve the culture of the Kingdom of God. We are to preserve the ways of God. We are to preserve the love and the Word of God in this day and age.
4. Hanukkah reminds us that we must put our faith into service. Like the ancient Maccabees, we must go in and cleanse the Temple—to rededicate and purify everything that has been touched and destroyed as satan has attempted to bring about his purposes in our world.

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As we face difficult times, which we seem to be in today, we can get the feeling that God was in the past and He will do many wonderful things in the future. So we are left with the question: Is there anything for now? We know that Christ is preparing a Kingdom and He will return. But He has also prepared a spiritual place for us as believers where we can abide with Him now, and experience everything He has for us now, not only in the future.

Show Notes: It is difficult for us to think of the time in which we live as having anything from God. We believe that God’s moving was either in the past or will be in the future and what we face today is just tremendous difficulty. But think how difficult it was for the disciples to understand the timeframe they were in before Yeshua (Jesus) was crucified and ascended to the Father. Nothing to them seemed greater than walking with the Messiah on the earth. Yet as He was leaving, He said, “Greater works than these will you do because I go to the Father.”

We are living in that time Christ spoke about, the time when He is at the right hand of the Father. And He told the disciples that this will be a greater time because the Father will give them the Holy Spirit. We need to get that into our hearts. We are not in some lesser time when we are to cower in a corner in fear and just wait for the second coming of Christ. Instead, we are in the tremendous time of the infilling of the Holy Spirit, which opens the door to Christ abiding with us and in us and He and the Father taking up their abode in us.

Yeshua said, “Let not your hearts be troubled.” This is not a time to fear. This is a time to dwell in the glory that Christ won on the cross. As we mature in this life until we are keeping His commandments, the Lord’s promise is that whatever we ask the Father He will do so that He may be glorified in Christ. That is not a promise for heaven. That is not a promise that happens after Christ returns to the earth. That is a promise for now. Within the Holy Spirit is the understanding of all that He has to teach us, and through the Holy Spirit is our access to Christ at the right hand of the Father so that we may dwell in the Father’s presence today.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 28:20. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
• 1 John 3:24. “We know by this that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.”
• John 14:1-17. “Greater works than these he will do; because I go to the Father.”
• Ephesians 2:6. “And seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.”
• Matthew 6:6. “Go into your inner room, close your door.”
• John 14:18-26. “In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.”
• John 14:27-31. “My peace I give to you; … Get up, let us go from here.”
• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”

Quotes:

• “He is at the right hand of the Father, but we are able to abide with Him and in Him as He is at the right hand of the Father.”
• “I want to know the Holy Spirit in a deeper relationship than what I have now. And that's something we should believe for every day.”
• “What should you be doing during this age and this time? You should be talking to your Teacher. You should be digging in to learn all that the Holy Spirit has to teach you.”

Takeaways:

1. As we live in these times, going through different trials and testings of our faith, we need to have the Word with us as the confidence that declares to us what we have available today in God—not yesterday or tomorrow.
2. The disciples were traumatized by the fact that Christ was being removed out of their midst. As we look out upon the world and see difficult things beginning to happen, we can be traumatized as well. But Yeshua said, “I'm not giving you a lesser timeframe to walk in. There is something greater to look forward to when you will have everything from the Father by the Holy Spirit.”
3. We should have a tremendous expectation of what a life in God can be today. We should be searching the Scriptures and the Spirit to see how to appropriate and walk in promises such as doing greater works than Christ did because He has gone to the Father.

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I do not like the spirit of fear that is associated with the end-time in the minds of Christians. Yes, days of tribulation are coming. Yes, the Body of Christ will face persecution. But tribulation also means the expanding of our growth and our walk with God, the perfecting of our hearts and spirits, the final work of salvation in our lives, the presence of the Lord, and our living in His Spirit. These are things I look forward to, not fear.

Show Notes: The doctrine of the Pre-Tribulation Rapture and other material surrounding it are purposed with generating fear in the hearts of people regarding the events of the end-time. That is unfortunate because the time of the end is the time of our greatest joy. It is the moment for the return of our Lord to the earth, for seeing the fulfillment of the disciples’ prayer: “Thy kingdom come, and Thy will be done on this earth as it is in heaven.” Rather than make people fear, I want to generate a faith and a joy towards the end-time for the fulfillments we will see in the earth and in our lives.

We as humans tend to be driven to appropriate things and move into seeking God like never before during times of testing and trouble. So these days of tribulation that are called the Great Tribulation will be times when we will be motivated to seek Him, and with our motivation we will have the provision of God for us. That is what I am looking for in my walk with God. I want to be perfect, complete, and lacking in nothing in the things that God has made available for me.

These are days when we pray, “Lord, we want to be perfected. We want to be in this world as You are. As the Father is perfect, we long to be perfect. We long to be free of our sin and the nature of sin. We want to put on the new self You have provided for us.” We may suffer. But when we do, we will be like Christ who learned obedience and was perfected by the things that He suffered. We may lay our lives down. But when we do, we will be putting our lives in the hands of Him who is the Resurrection and the Life. And we will find ourselves not losing our lives but gaining them in truth and brought forth to stand with Him in newness of life.

Key Verses:

• James 1:2-4. “The testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result.”
• 2 Peter 1:3. “Seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
• Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
• Daniel 12:10. “Many will be purged, purified and refined … those who have insight will understand.”
• Matthew 24:6. “See that you are not frightened.”
• Acts 4:31. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the Word of God with boldness.”
• Matthew 24:14. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world.”
• Luke 12:4. “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body.”
• Ephesians 6:10-15. “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might.”
• James 1:2-4. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.”
• Romans 8:29. “That He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
• Romans 8:17. “If indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
• Hebrews 5:8-9. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
• 2 Timothy 3:10-14. “You followed my … persecutions, and sufferings.”
• Revelation 1:9-10. “I, John, your brother and fellow partaker in the tribulation … was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”
• Acts 16:24-26. “Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns of praise.”

Quotes:

• “We are perfected, and we are completed and are lacking in nothing as we move forward into the things of God.”
• “It may be called the Great Tribulation. But I'll tell you, the Great Tribulation is going to be answered by great men and women of faith.”
• “We won't go through these times in our own strength. That's impossible to do. But in His strength, we can.”

Takeaways:

1. I want to prophesy an end to the spirit of fear that has been turned loose against the Body of Christ through false doctrines and teachings of fear that have implanted a withdrawal in the hearts of people and made them back away from these times.
2. Our forefathers laid down their lives for America and other nations of the world so that peoples and families yet to be born could walk and live in freedom. Let us at least measure to that natural level of giving of ourselves for something greater than ourselves in this world. Let our lives count for more than self-seeking and fulfillment on a personal level. Let us be those who step up and bring forth the Kingdom of God with faith and boldness.
3. We will be made perfect in the things that we suffer, and we will learn obedience in what we go through in these days. Therefore they will be the greatest days. They will be the days of the fulfillment of our prayers, the fulfillment of the walk with God we are looking for.

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You can disagree with my understanding of Scriptures or my personal belief system. That is fine with me. But I believe that we will be here during the Great Tribulation if we are graced by God to live up to that point. I believe God will give us the grace to live through it with faith and make Him proud of us in our strength to draw faith from Him and in Him.

Show Notes: There is a two-fold purpose to the Great Tribulation. The first is the perfecting of the saints. It will be a time and an opportunity like no other to grow in the things of God and appropriate from Him to become His true sons, standing in faith in His presence, being His witnesses in the earth. Secondly, it is a decision time for the wicked. It is a time when they will be hearing the gospel of the Kingdom, and they can believe and be saved, or they will continue doing wickedly. And if they continue in their wickedness, it then becomes the justification for God's final judgments.

The reality of tribulation is that when times get tough, people begin crying out to God for salvation. Therefore, we are not to be fearful. We are to be filled with faith and speaking His Word. We are to be reaching into more and more of God as His believers. When God begins to move, He moves on His people to hide themselves in Him and come into a closer relationship with Him. This has happened down through history to the Church. When people found themselves in times of tribulation, they sought God. In the Great Tribulation, believe me, we will have the greatest prayer meetings we have ever seen.

Wickedness will continue to grow because those who are committed to wickedness will become more wicked. But we as believers will find this a time of purifying, purging, and refining of our faith until we are shining brightly like the expanse of heaven. This will be a great age in which the Church steps up to the plate and proves themselves doers of the Word rather than hearers who delude themselves with doctrines. Let this testing we are entering into have its perfect result in us to bring us forth complete, lacking in nothing. That is what the days of tribulation are about for believers.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 24:6. “See that you are not frightened, for those things must take place.”
• John 17:15. “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”
• Matthew 24:29-30. “Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky.”
• Romans 8:17. “If indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.”
• Matthew 24:14. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world.”
• Genesis 15:16. “In the fourth generation they will return here, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.”
• Isaiah 26:20-21. “Hide for a little while until indignation runs its course.”
• Matthew 6:6-10. “Go into your inner room … for your Father knows what you need before you ask Him.”
• Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
• Daniel 12:1-4. “Everyone who is found written in the book, will be rescued.”
• Daniel 12:10. “Many will be purged, purified and refined.”
• 2 Corinthians 10:4. “The weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.”
• Matthew 10:28-34. “The very hairs of your head are all numbered.”
• Matthew 28:20. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
• Ephesians 6:11. “Put on the full armor of God.”
• James 1:12-22. “Once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life.”
• James 1:2-4. “Let endurance have its perfect result.”
• 1 Peter 1:3-11. “The proof of your faith, being more precious than”
• 1 Peter 1:18-19. “You were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold.”

Quotes:

• “The intensity of what humanity goes through is to drive you into God. It's not to drive you away from God.”
• “When we're in these days of testing, God knows what we need. Is it food? Is it shelter? Is it covering? Is it protection? He knows what we need before we ask Him.”
• “God is not trying to hurt us. This is not a time of our discipline and God taking us into judgment. This is a time of perfection and a time of blessing.”

Takeaways:

1. We are seeing the preparation of God's people for being transformed into His image and ruling and reigning with Christ in His Kingdom. It will be a testing of our faith, and a testing of the wicked to see if they are committed to their wickedness, or if they will repent and open their hearts to the Lord’s salvation, which He is holding out to them in total grace that absolutely will be available during this time.
2. All the things that have transpired through the bloodshed and wickedness of men will come out during this time. It is a time for the debts to be paid. The wicked will have an opportunity, but they will have to repent. And if they do not, they are proving their commitment to wickedness and they are going to find a great deal of recompence transpiring.
3. For those who know the Lord, this will not be a day when you are cowering in fear or desperate and barely making it. This is the time when you will shine brightly like the expanse of heaven as those who lead many to righteousness.

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Yeshua (Jesus) said that the gospel of the Kingdom will be preached as a testimony to all the nations, and then the Kingdom will come. But He spoke that in the context of the end-time events, which include the Great Tribulation. He also told us not to be afraid when we see tribulation begin to happen. We need to trust the Lord’s Word concerning the end times and see them as an occasion for faith rather than for fear and division among believers.

Show Notes: All the issues Christians have about the Rapture and what happens before, during, and after the millennium are fine as points of Bible study. But that is different than turning them into jugular-bulging arguments between believers. The last thing we need today is more issues to be divided about. We need to believe for the oneness of the Body of Christ and for God to bring us into a oneness of faith. Whatever our disagreements about the end-times, they will be resolved by the Lord’s return. He is returning to take up His throne and rule the nations. That is what we all look forward to as believers.

There are those who believe they will be raptured and will not experience the Great Tribulation. I believe otherwise, but that is not a point of division. My concern is that we do not have a true scriptural understanding of what the Great Tribulation is about. First of all, Christians have experienced tribulation from the beginnings of the Church and are experiencing tribulation in the world today. Many Christians in the United States and countries where Christianity has a strong root have not known tribulation. That situation could change, and you cannot assume that you will be exempt from persecution.

Matthew 24 does not define the Great Tribulation as some new level of suffering beyond what the people of the world have suffered and continue to suffer. But there are things that make it great. It will be an event that everyone experiences as they see the great conclusion of this age and the dawning of His Kingdom. It will be the last tribulation before the Lord’s return. It will be the time when the gospel of the Kingdom goes to the ends of the earth. There are many things about the Great Tribulation we should rejoice in rather than fear. Let us have faith in the Lord’s covering and protection.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 24:1-14. “This gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all the nations, and then the end will come.”
• Ephesians 6:12. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.”
• James 1:2. “Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.”
• Matthew 24:21-22. “There will be a great tribulation, such as has not occurred since the beginning of the world.”
• Matthew 22:35-40. “Which is the great commandment in the Law?”
• Matthew 24:29-31. “Then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see.”
• Matthew 28:20. “I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
• John 17:15. “I do not ask You to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one.”
• Acts 7:55-60. “I see the heavens opened up and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.”
• Daniel 3:23-26. “I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm.”

Quotes:

• “We are not without God's authority and protection during whatever days we go through in our walk with Him.”
• “The Lord ties this idea of the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom to this time period. In other words, the preaching of the Kingdom will happen during these days of tribulation.”
• “You've got to take the Word of God before the Lord, your Creator, and you've got to pray these things through with Him. You've got to find faith in Him, and you've got to find a way to walk with Him during these times.”

Takeaways:

1. Interpretations about the end-time should not be a source of division for Christians. We all believe in Christ coming to the earth. We all believe that He lived here, that He suffered on the cross, that He was resurrected, and that He will return. These are things that are foundational to our faith and our salvation.
2. We need to disarm this idea that tribulation is something new that suddenly explodes on the scene. The reality is that people have suffered all through the history of the Church. Right now there are people who are suffering and dying for their Christian faith. Because Christians in America and other countries are buffered from it for the time being does not mean they will not experience it.
3. There are different ways to think about the Great Tribulation other than the greatness of suffering. It is the time when the greatest witness for Christ will be in the earth. It is the last tribulation before the Kingdom, the last time that we see innocent people suffering under the hand of the wicked. That is a great thing and something we should all rejoice in.

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As Christians what do we do when we see this country moving away from God? Should we become activists and try to change things through the political process? The Scriptures give us insight. When Israel moved away from God and asked Samuel for a king, the Lord said, “Give them what they want, but tell them what it will mean for their lives.” Politics will not work if people’s hearts are turned against the Lord. We will change their hearts only by being God’s voice to this nation.

Email Subject Line 1: These Political Times

Email Subject Line 2: These Political Times

Show Notes: As believers in Christ, we do not set aside our faith as we use the democratic process to elect representatives or vote for laws that reflect our values and beliefs. Today as our society moves further and further away from the morals and values this nation has held since its founding, we tend to want to change things by the political process. The reality, however, is that the policies taking our country off its moral foundation are being determined through the political process by the people of this country. And I want to bring a biblical perspective on what is happening and what we should do about it.

When Israel asked Samuel for a king to rule over them, rejecting God as their King, Samuel was deeply concerned because he knew this would be the wrong direction for Israel. The Lord responded by telling Samuel to give the people what they wanted so that they would learn the consequences of their choice. We too, in this day, are deeply concerned about the direction this country is going. But we have to face the fact that God may be allowing this to happen, saying just as He said to Samuel, “Give the people what they want.”

The Lord also told Samuel, “Warn them what will happen when they choose to serve a king rather than God.” We as believers need to rise up and be the voice to this nation just as Samuel was to Israel and warn this nation of what happens when they do not serve God. We need to teach from the Scriptures and show what happens to the nations that serve other gods. People may need to taste the error of their ways to understand the choices they are making. But we can be here persistently proclaiming God’s truths and believing to turn the hearts of the people back to serving Him.

Key Verses:

• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”
• Romans 8:14. “All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
• 1 Samuel 8:1-5. “You have grown old, and your sons do not walk in your ways.”
• 1 Samuel 8:7-9. “Solemnly warn them and tell them of the procedure of the king who will reign over them.”
• 1 Samuel 8:10-22. “The people refused to listen to the voice of Samuel.”
• Jeremiah 29:13-14. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”
• Jeremiah 31:31-33. “I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah.”
• Ezekiel 36:26. “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you.”
• Malachi 4:6. “He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers.”
• Joel 2:14. “Who knows whether He will not turn and relent and leave a blessing.”

Quotes:

• “You don't need me to tell you how to vote, but I do think you need the Holy Spirit to tell you how to vote.”
• “I know that governmentally we have a separation in this country of church and state, but that doesn't mean that you leave your faith out of your decisions and your conscience and what you feel should be done.”
• “We may be in this country seeing something transpire as it did for Israel, where God is saying, ‘Give the people what they want.’”

Takeaways:

1. As Christians we continue to exercise our faith through elections and the political process. However, that does not seem to be enough to change the course of this country that is more and more removing God from every aspect of our society and government, taking us away from the blessings of God that have been on us as a nation.
2. Are we in a time when God will allow the people of the United States to choose a different type of governance, a different way of life, rejecting Judeo-Christian values, rejecting the blessings of serving God and instead choosing to serve other gods? Finding ourselves in this place, what is our leverage as believers? How do we reverse the political and social forces that are ruining this country?
3. We need to speak up in ways that we have not spoken up before. We need to show our faith. We need to speak our faith. We need to tell of the blessings that come when we live according to the principles of God in following Yeshua as Messiah and retaining our Judeo-Christian values. These things need to be shouted from the housetops to those who are making a decision to go in another direction.

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As Christians we are rightly concerned about the direction this nation is going and the leaders who are pulling this country away from God. However, this country is a democracy, and we the people are the ones who elected these leaders, and they were chosen out of the people of this country. Therefore, changing the leaders in an election will not change this nation if the hearts of the people are not changed. The true change to this nation will occur when we turn loose the power of God and turn the hearts of the people to the Lord.

Show Notes: We have the privilege in America to cast our ballot and make our choice for those who will be in elected office, and it is important that we continue to exercise this right. Obviously, the individuals we elect will have an impact on the future of this nation. However, we need to understand our role as Christians in the political process. There is a great deal of confusion about this right now. Should we as believers run for office? Should we try to elect believers to office? Should we work through the political process to make the United States a Christian nation? I believe the Scriptures give us insight into how to change a nation and its leaders. And it is not through elections.

The eighteenth chapter of 1 Kings contains a story of Elijah at a time when national leaders were pulling Israel away from following God, similar to what we see happening in our country today. Elijah’s solution was to gather all Israel together at Mount Carmel and stage a contest between himself and the prophets of Baal. By this he was not attempting to change the leadership of Israel. He was attempting to turn the hearts of the people of Israel back to the Lord. When that happened the corrupt leadership of Ahab and Jezebel was dealt with, and the nation was changed.

If we really want to change our elected officials, then we should follow Elijah’s example. The very fact that people say, “I would vote, but there are no good candidates” points to the root of the problem. It should not be impossible to find candidates within the majority of this nation who are serving God and walking with the Lord. The reality is that we the people need to change. Elijah changed the people of Israel by being the servant of God and turning loose the power of God. And when we as individuals are led by the Spirit of God and are serving the Lord with all our hearts, only then will we see the authority, the power, and the miracles we need to turn people’s hearts back to the Lord.

Key Verses:

• 1 King's 18:17-19. “Gather to me all Israel at Mount Carmel.”
• 1 Kings 18:30-37. “O LORD, answer me, that this people may know that You, O LORD, are God.”

Quotes:

• “It goes from the bottom up. And the bottom is from the bottom of our heart, serving the Lord, doing His will, following His commandments, living the life He has directed us to live in following the Scriptures. These are the things that really will bring change.”
• “Elijah recognized what was important. If he was going to see Israel turn and see something different transpire than what was going on in the nation at that time, he recognized he needed to have the hearts of the people changed.”
• “Just trying to bring a change of leadership is not going to bring the change to this nation that is really needed. We have to see a change of heart in this nation before we will truly see a change in the government of this nation.”

Takeaways:

1. Through Elijah on Mount Carmel, the heart of all Israel was changed. Out of this change, Ahab and Jezebel were dealt with, and there came a change to the nation of Israel. But the change to the nation did not come from the head of the government down. It came from the heart of the people up.
2. It is important that we vote, that we make our opinions known about laws and issues on the ballot. But if we only look to those things as the way of changing this country, we will not succeed. The change must begin in the hearts of believers, who then reach out and touch the people of this nation and see their hearts turned to God.
3. These elections will have a tremendous impact on our immediate future and the future of this country. But the greatest impact upon this nation, and every other nation for that matter, is the personal choice that each individual must make. Simply stated, that choice is whether or not you will worship and serve the God of creation and His King Messiah who will reign as Sovereign over this world.

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Christians cannot be uncaring about the world because they believe they will be raptured before the Tribulation. Neither should they lose their faith if they experience things they believe they are not supposed to experience. Regardless of our doctrines, we must stand firm in our faith and in the love of Christ, able to resist the spiritual forces of wickedness that are increasing in this day.

Show Notes: The disciples asked Yeshua (Jesus) about the destruction of the temple, the sign of His coming, and the end of the age. The Lord’s answer shows us how to think about the time in which we live. Right at the start He commanded them not to be afraid, and that is the first attitude we must have. We cannot be afraid as we watch events unfold that are only the beginning of birth pangs. However, we must be prepared because the Tribulation will unfold in stages like the labor of giving birth, with each stage becoming more intense.

Whether you believe in a pretribulation rapture or not, right now we are living in days when the things Yeshua described are intensifying. There has always been wickedness, but we are seeing an increase in wickedness and lawlessness to a level of pure craziness. It is far beyond what we have known as reason or simple understanding of truth and facts. People are declaring that evil is good and good is evil as they tear down that which has been tested and proven in our society for centuries. We see Christians falling away from their faith and turning against one another. The love of many has grown cold and rage is taking over. There is no such thing as debate or discussion. People go immediately from disagreement to hurting each other.

All of this is attributable to the spirits that are being released and will be released in this age. Therefore, we take up the full armor of God so that we are able to resist in the evil day. We are not battling each other or mankind; we are battling the schemes of the devil. Get out of the hate. We are to love our enemy and pray for those who despitefully use us. We are not to argue doctrines. We are to find the Holy Spirit moving in us. We must be driven by the truth, not by the spirits of wickedness that are beginning to take over this age; because the time of the end is also the time that the gospel of the Kingdom will go to the ends of the earth.

Key Verses:

• Matthew 24:1-14. “Many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.”
• Isaiah 5:20. “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil.”
• Ephesians 6:10-18. “Our struggle is not against flesh and blood.”
• Matthew 24:22. “Unless those days had been cut short, no life would have been saved.”
• Luke 6:27-28. “Love your enemies.”
• Romans 8:21-23. “The whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.”

Quotes:

• “I don't like what I see taking place in our world right now. I don't like what I see taking place between believers and other believers. I don't like what I see taking place because people are getting so involved in the spirits that are being released into this age.”
• “I believe much of the Tribulation events are driven by the world of spirit. And the spirits are being released and taking hold in this day in a way that they never have.”
• “We must not be deceived into feeling that our fight is against one another or against any flesh, even that of the wicked. We are to pray. We are to be an answer to them and have the Word of the gospel ready for them.”

Takeaways:

1. Christ related end-time events to childbirth. The end of the labor is the birth of a child, but the process of labor is painful and grows in intensity. Likewise the tribulations start like the beginning of birth pangs and increase in intensity. The Lord did not say things will happen that have never happened before. But things will intensify.
2. The spirits of wickedness are beginning to control people in a way that is deeply impacting our government, our politics, our education, and many other aspects of our world and our lives. They are also deeply affecting believers in their own faith and in their relationships to one another.
3. We are already facing spiritual forces on a level never before experienced. The walls of protection we have enjoyed may already be coming down. But let us walk in faith. Let us put on the full armor of God. Let us do the will of God and be His voice and His manifestation of light in this age.

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The wickedness that exists in the world is because of transference. Our actions, our words, our thoughts are transferred from within us to the world surrounding us. And they generate the circumstances and consequences we live in. But if wickedness can be transferred, so can righteousness. By the grace of God and by the transference that He established through the cross, our sin is removed from us and placed on the cross, and the righteousness of Christ is transferred from the cross into our lives. By changing what is in us we can change the world.

Show Notes: As you mature, you become responsible. The more you grow and the more you mature, the more responsibility you take for what is necessary in your life. By doing that, by becoming a responsible person, you affect the world and people around you. It may be something that you are doing internally, but it impacts the lives of everyone you associate with. We understand this principle on a natural level, but we often fail to apply it spiritually. It is the nature within us that negatively affects the world, and if we never take responsibility ourselves for that nature then we have no hope of changing the world.

The world is a closed system. We are all interrelated one to another. What I do does not affect only me. It affects you and it affects the world. And if we as the Body of Christ are to be a solution to the world and the age we live in, then we will have to stop pointing the finger and blaming everybody and everything else and take on the responsibility. We need to do more than say our sins are forgiven. We need to become responsible for changing the consequences of our sin.

Christ did not stand before the Father and say, “These people have sinned. I didn’t. Why should I carry the responsibility of what these other people have done?” Instead, in obedience to the Father, He let God transfer all our iniquity onto Him so that the righteousness of God could be transferred to us. Instead of saying that the sin of the world is not our problem, we need to follow Christ’s example and take responsibility for the sin that has impacted the world through us and transfer that sin to the ever-present provision of His cross so that His righteousness can impact the world through us.

Key Verses:

• Genesis 11:1-9. “Let us make for ourselves a name.”
• Romans 8:20-21. “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.”
• 2 Corinthians 7:1. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit.”
• Isaiah 55:6-7. “Let him return to the LORD.”
• Isaiah 1:16. “Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from My sight.”
• Jeremiah 4:14. “How long will your wicked thoughts lodge within you?”
• James 4:8-12. “Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.”
• Romans 8:21. “The creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption.”
• Philippians 2:5-8. “Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who … emptied Himself.”
• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
• Isaiah 53:6. “The LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
• 2 Corinthians 5:21. “… that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
• Hebrews 5:8. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered.”
• Romans 5:18-19. “Through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
• Romans 13:14. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Quotes:

• “You've got to come to the place where you understand that what is going on is your responsibility.”
• “We are responsible. By repentance and confession, we’re cleansed by God from the cause of our surroundings.”
• “We should have by now suffered enough things in our life that we can wake up to the reality that what's causing the discomfort around us is that which still dwells within us.”

Takeaways:

1. As a believer in Christ you are forgiven by God for your sin. But that does not mean that the consequences of your actions have been removed. It is just that simple. We have done things. And when we do things, when we think things, when we say things, something is set in motion that affects everything outside of us.
2. Are you responsible for the futility that rests on this planet? The answer is “Yes.” You are responsible along with all of humanity. That futility is only removed by the sons of God coming into the perfection of removing from themselves the defilement that dwells within them.
3. By the cross of Christ I am able to transfer onto Him everything within me that has brought about the wrong consequences in the world around me. And His nature can be transferred to me, bringing the consequences of righteousness.

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Imagine the Kingdom of God on this earth—a time when the presence of God is always with us and leading us, when knowledge and understanding of His Word is always available, when there is no disease and people have all the food they need. Well, the Feast of Tabernacles is a remembrance of the time when the children of Israel experienced all those things in the wilderness. We pray, “Thy kingdom come on earth.” But through Tabernacles God can show us exactly what that means.

Show Notes: How important is the Feast of Tabernacles to us as Christians? All of the biblical feasts have relevance for us, but the Feast of Tabernacles is particularly significant to the days we are living in now. Of all the feasts, Tabernacles is the only time the LORD commanded the children of Israel to include the servants and strangers and others living in their towns. It points to the time of His Kingdom when those who were formally strangers and aliens are included, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of the LORD (Habakkuk 2:14).

The observance of this feast involves living in simple booths for seven days. This was to remind the children of Israel of the time they lived in tents as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. We usually think of the wilderness as a time when God's dealings are on us, or negative things are taking place surrounding us. But the Feast of Tabernacles is about being all together joyful, about celebrating the harvest, about God reminding them, “When you were in the wilderness, I was with you.”

During this Feast of Tabernacles study the Scriptures about it. Learn how it has been celebrated and the events that transpired during the feast, both in the history of Israel and in the life of Christ. It will give you something not just to remember, but to look forward to. Use your imagination and picture in your mind what those days in the wilderness would have been like, when the presence of the LORD was always with them protecting them, leading them, instructing them, providing for them. Wait on the Lord and say, “Show me, Lord. What are these days of Tabernacles? And what do they hold in store for us as believers today?”

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 23:34-44. “You shall live in booths for seven days.”
• Deuteronomy 16:13-18. “You shall rejoice in your feast.”
• Deuteronomy 31:10-13. “At the end of every seven years … you shall read this law in front of all Israel.”
• 1 Kings 8:2-6. “At the feast … the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place.”
• 2 Chronicles 5:1-7. “Then all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark.”
• Ezra 3:1-6. “They celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written.”
• Nehemiah 8:13–9:3. “The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them.”
• John 7:2-14. “When it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach.”
• John 7:37-39. “From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.”
• Matthew 6:10. “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
• John 18:36. “My kingdom is not of this world.”
• Romans 8:14. “All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.”
• Isaiah 11:9. “The earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD.”

Quotes:

• “We see some of these tremendous advantages of this time in the wilderness that only existed for Israel or on the earth during this time.”
• “God is saying, ‘I want you to remember this time because I'm going to bring My Kingdom to this earth.’”
• “This Feast of Tabernacles is the feast of His presence on the earth, and let us believe to see the glory of the Lord fill all the earth at this wonderful time of Tabernacles.”

Takeaways:

1. This feast is referred to as Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles. And one of the great titles for this feast, in my mind, is the Feast of the LORD. This indicates how important this time is; we are to spend it with the Lord. We need to study the Scriptures and lay hold of its true significance for us.
2. In our Christian mindset, we often think of the wilderness as a negative experience. But the reality is that there are many aspects of the wilderness experience that describe the experience of God’s Kingdom on earth.
3. Isaiah tells us that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea. And it was during Tabernacles that Yeshua (Jesus) prophesied that out of us will flow rivers of living water. So Tabernacles is about the presence of God, the knowledge of God, the understanding of God that will flow into the earth through the believers in Christ.

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On the Day of Atonement, the high priest sacrificed one goat as the sin offering, and he laid his hands on a second goat, confessed over it the sins of the people, and sent it away for the removal of that sin. Christ is our Atonement. And we must see that the cross of Christ not only gives us the forgiveness of our sins, but His cross is continually available for us to confess over Him our sins, lay upon Him our sins, and see those sins completely removed from our lives.

Show Notes: On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, one goat was sacrificed as a sin offering. Next a second goat was offered as the Azazel or scapegoat. The high priest laid his hands on this goat and confessed over it all the sins and transgressions of the sons of Israel. Then the scapegoat, which now bore all their iniquity, was sent into the wilderness, thus removing their iniquity from them. It is important to see that after the sacrifice for sin was made, God provided for the complete removal of the sin.

In Christ, we have the fulfillment of Atonement. Yet as Christians we continue to struggle with the sin nature after we have accepted Christ as the offering for our sin on the cross. Christians often feel condemned and even shunned and put down by those in their church if they have problems with their flesh. This is why the Day of Atonement is so important for believers in Christ. We need to see that we can confess our sins and lay those sins on the cross of Christ just as the high priest confessed the sins of Israel and laid them on the Azazel goat.

The cross of Christ is not something that happens once in our life at our original salvation experience. We recognize that He is our Messiah, that He died for our sins, brought the forgiveness, and reconciled us to the Father. But we must also recognize that He is able to remove from us all the remaining iniquity and nature that is at war within us. The cross of Christ is happening right now at this moment, and we can lay on that cross all the sin that remains in us. He knows our weakness and does not condemn us for what remains, but He wants us to accept that He is able to deliver us from all those things.

Key Verses:

• Leviticus 16:8-10. “Aaron shall offer the goat on which the lot for the LORD fell, and make it a sin offering.”
• Leviticus 16:21-22. “The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to a solitary land.”
• Romans 7:12-25. “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.”
• Romans 8:1-3. “Sending His own Son … as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh.”
• 1 John 1:9. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”
• Colossians 3:5-10. “You laid aside the old self with its evil practices.”
• Isaiah 53:6. “The LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
• Ephesians 4:17-27. “Lay aside the old self … and put on the new self.”

Quotes:

• “I like the terminology ‘goat of removal’ because the idea here is that all that was remaining in the lives of the people was removed out of the camp.”
• “I believe for sure that I am forgiven by Christ for anything that remains dwelling in me. But I also believe in the provision, as I see reflected in the Day of Atonement, that there is a final removal of the nature of sin out of me.”
• “I bless us as we walk in this Day of Atonement that we likewise put off the old man, put away the old nature, and put on a new self that is filled with righteousness, truth, and holiness in the will of God.”

Takeaways:

1. The Day of Atonement, or Yom Kippur, is one of the most special times in the biblical feasts. It is very pertinent for our lives as Christian believers because it deals with what is available to us in our total deliverance from the sin that dwells in us, which we continue to labor under.
2. Often condemnation is so heavy on Christians that it is destructive to their walk with God and ruins their lives in Christ. This should not be. In Romans 7, Paul wrote of his own struggle with the flesh to help us recognize that we do not deal with these issues by ourselves, but there is a provision in Christ for the removal of the sin nature.
3. Just as the high priest laid hands on the head of the goat and imparted their sins on the Day of Atonement, lay your hands upon the Lord as He is on the cross for you at this moment and let Him remove the sins from you wholly and completely.

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Show Notes: When we think of Paul, who was a tremendous apostle of God, who in the strength of his ministry accomplished so many great things, and whose amazing experiences and writings compose most of the New Testament, we see him as fulfilling the commission of God by himself. We forget the assistance he had from others and how necessary it was that many were helping him. Paul, however, knew how necessary they were and was always mentioning them in his letters.

It is important for us to understand how the early Church functioned, how they worked together and worked with the apostolic ministries. They saw themselves as fellow workers laboring together in the vision and revelation with the apostles. Their deeply committed relationships were the strength of the New Testament and how the churches were built. In that day there were those who were working against the ministry, who were being a negative force and influence trying to bring destruction to the churches and take away from what Paul was doing. We experience these same things today.

More than ever the Church needs to get away from the one-man show—individuals working in isolation—and come into the relationships that formed the Church we read of in the New Testament. This is my vision for Hargrave Ministries. Please pray with us, as our ministry to Israel and the Body of Christ continues to grow, that God will bring those who will be friends and fellow workers with us. If you have a burden for this work, please feel free to contact us and join with us in this ministry that is bearing fruit and being a blessing to many people.

Key Verses:

• Romans 16:1-24. “… my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.”
• 1 Corinthians 3:5-9. “For we are God’s fellow workers.”
• Philippians 4:1-3. “… and the rest of my fellow workers.”
• Philippians 2:25. “I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker.”
• 3 John 1-15. “Support such men, so that we may be fellow workers with the truth.”

Quotes:

• “Paul was always in a process of informing the churches of those who were helping him and those who were one with him.”
• “God is raising up a company of friends and fellow workers.”
• “There's no greater feeling than being one who is working with the Lord to fulfill the Word of God that we see in the Scriptures.”

Takeaways:

1. We regard Paul as an individual who accomplished great things in God. But Paul’s letters provide a list of many people who worked together with him, with whom he had deep relationships, and without whom his ministry could not have been accomplished.
2. Paul and the other apostles were not functioning as single ministries like we see today. They were companies of people moving together to accomplish the anointing and the commission that God had given them.
3. I am longing to see God raise up within and around Hargrave Ministries those who are friends and fellow workers together, and that we all feel that what God is doing is the fruit and the accomplishment of each and every one of us, not just of myself or one or two other individuals.

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Show Notes: Christ and the early Church followed the schedule of the biblical feasts. When He was a child Yeshua and His family went up to Jerusalem and celebrated the feasts as ordained by the Lord. Later during His ministry Yeshua continued to observe the feast times. It is recorded throughout the Gospels that His pattern was to go to Jerusalem during a prescribed feast. Even when people there were seeking to kill Him, it was important for Him to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Tabernacles. We also read that He went to Jerusalem in winter for the Feast of Dedication, which is Hanukah.

The same pattern was followed by Paul. On one occasion Paul decided to sail past Ephesus because he was in a hurry to be in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost. At another time he told the Corinthians that he would remain in Ephesus until the feast. So Paul often made observing the feasts a priority in his travel plans. The greatest example though of the importance of these biblical feasts is the fact that the Church was created during the Feast of Pentecost. It was the Lord Himself who directed the disciples to be in Jerusalem during that time.

Zechariah prophesied that in the days of Christ’s Kingdom on the earth, all the nations will come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles together. And it will not be a matter of choice. A plague and a punishment will be on the nations and families who do not come. Clearly God is serious about these times that He has appointed for us to celebrate Him and His Word. We should approach these times with tremendous anticipation in our hearts, not out of a sense of obligation but with an expectation that God will meet us, open doors that have never been opened, and show us things in His Word we have never seen before.

Key Verses:

• Luke 2:40-42. “His parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover.”
• John 2:13, 23. “The Passover of the Jews was near, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
• John 5:1. “There was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem.”
• John 7:2-10. “When His brothers had gone up to the feast, then He Himself also went up.”
• John 10:22–23. “The Feast of the Dedication took place at Jerusalem; it was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple.”
• Acts 20:16. “Paul … was hurrying to be in Jerusalem, if possible, on the day of Pentecost.”
• 1 Corinthians 5:7-8. “Celebrate the feast … with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
• 1 Corinthians 16:7-9. “I will remain in Ephesus until Pentecost.”
• Acts 2:1-4. “When the day of Pentecost had come.”
• Acts 1:4-8. “He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised.”
• Zechariah 14:16-19. “All the nations that went against Jerusalem will … celebrate the Feast of Booths.”
• Micah 4:1-2. “Many nations will come and say, ‘Come and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD.’”

Quotes:

• “There are several appointed times in the Hebrew Scriptures. And people wonder if this is something that has passed or if there is a significance or a reason why Christians should be observing or looking for God to move in their lives during these times.”
• “Even though it was dangerous for Yeshua to go into Jerusalem and go through Judea at this time, He still went up at this prescribed time of the feast.”
• “Christ had told them to go back to Jerusalem and wait until they were endued with power from on high. And that endowment of the Spirit, that giving of authority and power to the disciples to spread the gospel into all the world, came on the Day of Pentecost.”

Takeaways:

1. Christ’s family celebrated the feasts as observant Jews. Paul himself celebrated these times. He scheduled his travels to be in Jerusalem for a specific feast. The Church itself was born during the Feast of Pentecost.
2. Zechariah prophesied that the Gentile nations will come to Jerusalem to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. The feasts then are not something only to be observed by Jews. They continue to be an important part of our Christian experience.
3. These are appointments with God that He has established for us. Let us schedule our hearts and our spirits to enter into these times and expect that He will meet us.

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Show Notes: We generally think of intercession as prayer for someone or something external to us, but real intercession embodies more than that. We read in Isaiah 59 that God was grieved because there was no one to intercede. Therefore, He raised up His own intercessor, who did something we do not associate with intercession: He put on righteousness and salvation. This intercessor is the Messiah, and His intercession was not a matter of praying for us to be saved. He brought salvation by becoming in Himself the source of our salvation.

Christ did not pray to end sin; He became the opposite of sin. His intercession was to take responsibility for what the world had become through sin and become the solution for it. If we are to follow Christ’s example of intercession, we will not do it without taking responsibility ourselves. We are not victims of an external world that we had no part in shaping. We will not change what surrounds us by feeling that we are victims of it. We must realize that we are responsible for this age and what is transpiring in this age.

We must do the same thing that Christ did. He put on righteousness. The Scriptures tell us to put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We are to put on the divine nature that has escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. The way to change the world around us is by cleansing ourselves of the world’s corruption that dwells in us. Through Christ put that rebellious nature on the cross. Get rid of the anger. Get rid of the hatred. Get rid of the injustice. Get rid of the judgment. Get rid of all the things of this world that are still in you. This is how we pray in a manner that will change the world—by cleansing ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Key Verses:

• Isaiah 59:1-17. “He put on righteousness like a breastplate.”
• 2 Samuel 12:13-14. “The LORD also has taken away your sin. ... However, … the child also that is born to you shall surely die.”
• Romans 5:12-19. “Through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.”
• 1 Peter 5:7. “Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”
• Romans 6:6. “Our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with.”
• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
• Romans 13:14. “Put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh.”
• Romans 8:16-24. “The creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.”
• 1 John 3:1-3. “Everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.”
• 2 Corinthians 7:1. “Let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit.”
• Hebrews 5:8-9. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect …”

Quotes:

• “What we must understand is that salvation worked for us through what He personally became.”
• “How do you change the world of sin? How do you get rid of sin? You become righteous.”
• “Do you say, ‘I want the world to change’? Good. Then get the world out of you.”
• “If we're going to see the world set free from futility, we don't do it by looking at futility as outside of ourselves.”

Takeaways:

1. When God raised up Messiah to be our intercessor, we read that He put on righteousness. He put on salvation. Everything He did to save us He did within Himself.
2. We look around today and see a world that is bathed in the concept of victimhood. That is the opposite of what God is trying to do right now to bring forth His Kingdom. He is looking for sons who will take the responsibility as Christ took the responsibility.
3. We must purify ourselves. We must take these things that still exist within us in unrighteousness and put them on the cross, literally pulling them out by the roots. We must remove these things from our lives by faith, by love, and by the blood of Christ.

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Show Notes: Was salvation created when you repented of your sins and invited Christ into your heart? No, salvation took place at the cross. It took place during the Passover when Christ the Lamb of God was slain for us and was resurrected. Salvation has existed since then as potential energy, and until we accept salvation personally, activating it as kinetic energy in our lives, all it can be is potential.

This is true of all the promises and provisions that God has made available through His grace. They exist only as potentials until we believe them and take action ourselves to put them in motion. When we look at how much God has already given us through His grace and His love and His gifts, I would say that many of these potentials are still not active and working in our lives. Yes, we have forgiveness of sin. But what about our physical healing? What about the deliverances we need? How many things are we in bondage to today, whether it is the ways of this world, drugs, or emotional issues?

Peter wrote that God’s divine power has provided everything pertaining to life and godliness. He has given us His precious and magnificent promises that we may become partakers of the divine nature. We have the fruit of the Spirit—all the attributes of Christ’s nature. In the gifts of the Spirit, we have the ability to work miracles; we have understanding, revelation, and discernment. Let us be persistently seeking, knocking, and asking the Lord so that we let go of our reluctance and unbelief and activate these great provisions in our lives.

Key Verses:

• Joshua 13:1. “Very much of the land remains to be possessed.”
• Romans 10:6-11. “THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART.”
• John 19:30. “It is finished!”
• Luke 13:34. “How often I wanted to gather your children ... and you would not

have it!”

   * 1 Peter 2:24. “By His wounds you were healed.”

• Isaiah 53:6. “The LORD has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him.”
• Luke 11:5-13. “Everyone who asks, receives; and he who seeks, finds; and to

him who knocks, it will be opened.” * Ephesians 4:17-24. “Lay aside the old self ... and put on the new self.” * 1 Corinthians 2:9. “Things which eye has not seen and ear has not heard ...

that God has prepared for those who love Him.” * 2 Peter 1:2-4. “His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may

become partakers of the divine nature.” * 2 Peter 1:5-8. “For this very reason also, applying all diligence ...” * Colossians 3:9-17. “You laid aside the old self with its evil practices, and have

put on the new self.” * Romans 12:1-2. “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the

renewing of your mind.” * 1 Peter 5:7. “Casting all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.”

Quotes:

• “All things that He provided for in Christ do exist, and they're waiting for you to turn them from potential into kinetic energy in your life.”
• “Like putting on a sweater, you put on the new. When it's hanging in the closet, that's potential energy. When you put it on that's kinetic. You wear it around all day and it functions with you as a garment.”
• “What an amazing salvation we have! It goes so far beyond what we've been able to imagine at this point because of the darkness that's existed in our minds. And we need to cast that out and put on this new self.”

Takeaways:

1. Salvationexistedbeforeyoureceivedit.Allthepromisesandprovisionsof God exist right now as potential energy. We are not waiting for them to be created. They are available to be possessed.
2. AsChristianswehadtobelieveinChristasoursalvationandaskHiminto our lives for the forgiveness of sin. His grace that provides our forgiveness also provides our healing, transformation, and deliverance on every level. We must believe and appropriate all of God's provisions for them to manifest and work in our lives today.
3. God'sgracebecomeskineticenergywhenweclotheourselveswithChristby putting on His promises and provisions by faith in Him and through Him.

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Title: Heirs but Slaves

Web Description: As believers in Christ, we are heirs of God and rightful owners of everything that He has provided. At the same time, we can walk as if we do not possess any of what is ours, as if we were slaves under guardians and managers. Yet there is a point in our maturity when the Father grants us access to our inheritance. As we grow in God, there should be a drive in us to reach in every day to have more of what He has provided for us; we must live in it and manifest it in our lives.

Show Notes: In Paul’s analogy, a son who is an heir of his father’s household is just like a slave. As a child he is under guardians and managers until he is old enough to receive the inheritance. We too are heirs of all the promises and provisions of God in Christ. Yet our ability to control or move in these things is extremely limited. We too are under guardians and managers—impasses and blocks that stop us from accessing all that should be ours—until we are mature enough to receive our full inheritance.

It is important to understand that Yeshua (Jesus) had the same flesh that we have. He was the heir to all things from the Father, but He had to learn obedience by the things that He suffered. He had to go through the process of being made perfect. He had to come to the place where He was no longer under guardians or managers or any restraints that would hold Him back until He was fully a Son in possession of the full provision God made for Him.

Yeshua is our example. He is our pattern that we are to live by. And we read in Hebrews that He “offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him.” We should follow this same pattern of crying out to God, seeking Him that we might grow and learn obedience, that we might be made perfect as Christ was made perfect in relationship to the Father. Christ walked in God’s provision when He was on the earth in His flesh. We can apply the same effort and energy to our walk with God that Christ did and trigger the response from the Father that activates our inheritance in our lives right now.

Key Verses:

• Galatians 4:1-2. “As long as the heir is a child, he does not differ at all from a slave.”
• Hebrews 5:7-14. “He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears.”
• Luke 6:12. “He spent the whole night in prayer to God.”
• John 16:15. “All things that the Father has are Mine.”
• John 5:19. “Whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.”
• John 8:28. “I speak these things as the Father taught Me.”
• Psalm 135:16–17. “They have eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear.”
• 2 Peter 1:1-4. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
• 2 Peter 1:5-15. “For this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith.”
• 2 Peter 3:18. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
• Jeremiah 29:13. “You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart.”

Quotes:

• “We have this tremendous inheritance in Christ through salvation. And yet I believe that we only function in a very limited amount of what is there for us.”
• “I wish we could really grasp the urgency of how Christ lived in a relationship with the Father, knowing that it really was life or death.”
• “We need to get out of the littleness of our concept of what salvation is all about, of what the cross of Christ is all about, of what the resurrection of Christ really provides for us.”

Takeaways:

1. As heirs of God in Christ, we are owners of everything that He has provided, but our immaturity restricts us from controlling or moving in these things. We need to grow into the maturity that triggers God granting us full access to His great provision.
2. We have grown dull in our awareness of what God has made available to us. It is only as we seek His provisions, revealed through His Word, that we are able to grasp what is ours to walk in. We need to seek God for the understanding of everything we have in this great inheritance and the provisions that God has given us in Messiah.
3. Once we have an understanding of what is available, then we should give ourselves in a relationship with Christ to the Father and be pursuing these things. Let us follow what God said to Israel through Jeremiah the prophet. We will seek Him and find Him when we search for Him with all our heart.

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As a Christian, are you to be perfect? Yes. However, that does not mean you were supposed to be perfect the instant you received salvation, and therefore now you are a failure because you are still imperfect. We are to be perfect, but we do not achieve that by trying to perfect ourselves. We grow up into Christ. We grow up into the perfection that is attributed to us and imparted to us by God.

Show Notes: Christians need a greater understanding of how we grow up into Christ and how God works His perfection in us because our concepts about salvation tend to bring us under condemnation. Yeshua (Jesus) is our example. He was perfect, and therefore we must be perfect. Yet after our salvation experience, we find that we make mistakes and we have problems, even serious problems at times. Since we are not instantly perfect when we are saved, or we do not obtain perfection after years of following Christ, we develop feelings of failure and condemnation.

We need to learn from the examples of faith in the Hebrew Scriptures. Those Scriptures are not shy about pointing out the needs, down fallings, and failures of the wonderful men and women of God who had true problems. Like us, they were seeking to the best of their ability to follow after purity and righteousness and the perfect life that the Scripture talks about. Abraham was as weak as any of us, but God reckoned him righteous. And whatever we think about righteousness or perfection, it is not something that we achieve by our efforts. Perfection is attributed to us by God.

Our example in Christ is that He did not come into the world as an instantly perfect human. He was made perfect by God. He had to learn obedience by the things He suffered. The Father disciplined Him and perfected Him in order that He would become our perfection. And this perfection is not something that comes like a flash when we are first saved and brought into a relationship with the Father through Christ. It is something that begins at that point. And from that point, the Father works in us to equip us to do His will and become those who are pleasing in His sight.

Key Verses:

• Romans 8:29. “He would be the firstborn among many brethren.”
• Matthew 5:43-48. “You are to be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”
• Revelation 12:10. “The accuser of our brethren … accuses them before our God day and night.”
• James 2:20-24. “As a result of the works, faith was perfected.”
• Acts 13:22-23. “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My heart, who will do all My will.”
• Hebrews 5:7-10. “He learned obedience from the things which He suffered. And having been made perfect …”
• Matthew 3:17. “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
• Hebrews 2:9-11. “It was fitting for Him … to perfect the author of their salvation through sufferings.”
• Philippians 2:12-13. “It is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.”
• Hebrews 13:20-21. “… equip you in every good thing to do His will, working in us that which is pleasing in His sight.”
• Hebrews 12:4-8. “God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom his father does not discipline?”
• 2 Peter 3:18. “Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”
• 1 Peter 2:1-2. “Long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation.”
• Ephesians 4:15-16. “We are to grow up in all aspects into Him.”

Quotes:

• “Maybe everything you're doing is not pleasing to Him, but don't be condemned over it. Get up and keep walking.”
• “It is God who is at work in us, both to will and to work for His good pleasure. What is His pleasure? Our perfection, our coming into the likeness of the Son. But it is He who is working it in us. It is not something we achieve on our own by the flesh.”
• “Don’t be condemned that you're not perfect. We may not be perfect at this point, but we must remember that in Christ we are to grow up into His likeness. We are not to be in some instant perfected state. As we are saved, we grow into His image.”

Takeaways:

1. Christian doctrine tends to emphasize the need for perfection and that can bring condemnation. There is a sense that salvation means instant perfection. And when we see the imperfections in our lives, even after years of following Christ as our Savior, we develop a feeling of failure.
2. Yes, we are to be perfect as our heavenly Father is perfect. But the Scriptures describe imperfect humans who are being made perfect while in this process of relationship with Him. Even Yeshua, who is our pattern, was made perfect by the discipline of the Father and the things that He suffered.
3. God worked perfection in Christ as He is working it in us, and so our salvation is not instant perfection. It is a process of being perfected, of becoming pleasing to the Father, and coming into the image of Christ.

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Growing In God Podcast

GIG #105 The Acts 2 Revival

I have a deep burden for the Body of Christ because we need to see the world touched right now. The world is in need. But the Church today is so divided and so devoid of the power that was released by the resurrection of Christ that we seem to have no ability to change anything. We must cry out to God for an Acts 2 revival that sees the Church truly manifested as the fullness of Him who fills all in all and change this earth by the power of His resurrection in us.

Show Notes: Read the second chapter of Acts and study the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that created the Church on the Day of Pentecost. Then ask yourself, is the Church today the same Church? Does the Church today have the same signs and wonders? Is the Church today speaking the Word of God with boldness and seeing thousands at a time being saved? If we believe that the Bible is the Word of God, then we must acknowledge that what we have of God, of Yeshua (Jesus), and of the Holy Spirit in our personal lives and in the Church falls very short of what the Scriptures promise us.

We have to look at revivals of the past such as the Azusa Street revival to see the Church operating with any power like the Church of Acts 2. Yet Ephesians tells us that the power of Christ’s resurrection is focused on us as believers and that the Body of Christ is the fullness of Him who fills all in all. The same power we see in Acts 2 and in the great revivals of the past is available to us today. So why are we satisfied with the limited measure we are walking in?

The disciples had been satisfied walking with Yeshua, but after His resurrection and ascension they were thrown into a crisis. They were thrown into seeking God together, overcoming the things that divided them, waiting on the Lord to be endued with power. And Acts 2 records the great revival that occurred. Are we not aware that the Church is in crisis today? The Body of Christ should be praying like never before, overcoming our divisions about the Scriptures by letting the Holy Spirit give us understanding and waiting on the Lord to be endued with power so that the world has the revival it needs. People need the signs and wonders. They need the voice of the Spirit of Truth. They need the power of Christ’s resurrection. Let us seek the Lord with all our hearts.

Key Verses:

• Ephesians 1:18-23. “… what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe.”
• Ephesians 4:11-13. “He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers.”
• Acts 1:13-15. “They went up to the upper room … a gathering of about one hundred and twenty persons.”
• 2 Peter 1:3. “His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness.”
• Luke 24:36-38. “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts arise in your hearts?”
• John 14:25-26. “The Holy Spirit … will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.”
• John 17:22. “The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one.”
• John 3:34. “He gives the Spirit without measure.”
• John 1:32-33. “He upon whom you see the Spirit descending and remaining …”
• Acts 2:14. “But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven …”
• Isaiah 28:17. “Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies.”
• Luke 6:12. “He spent the whole night in prayer to God.”
• John 14:10-11. “Otherwise believe because of the works themselves.”
• Acts 1:3. “He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs.”
• Acts 4:31. “They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with boldness.”
• Acts 2:41. “That day there were added about three thousand souls.”
• Matthew 7:7. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock and it will be opened to you.”
• Hebrews 10:23. “Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.”

Quotes:

• “It's going to take an outpouring of the Spirit of God into the world, into the Body of Christ, to fix what is terribly, terribly broken.”
• “We as the Body of Christ right now need to learn to pray like we've never prayed before. We need a prayer life. We need an individual prayer life. We need a corporate prayer life that is going to be freighted with the power to change the world that we live in.”
• “Let there be something in our hearts that begins to contend for another outpouring of the Spirit, as we see in the book of Acts, that is the nexus of what we are as the Church, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.”

Takeaways:

1. We need to get out of this idea that it is fine for the Church to be powerless, that it is fine for us not to move as the prophets of God, as the apostles in the New Testament. We need to go back to the biblical outpost, back to the Acts 2 revival, back to the revivals of the past, and realize that it is for us as believers today.
2. Until they received the Holy Spirit, the disciples did not really understand what Yeshua was teaching them. They were also divided. Today we have the Scriptures, but all the different understandings of the Scriptures have only led to division. We need an outpouring of the Spirit to give us the understanding and the oneness we are to have as His Body.
3. By the Holy Spirit, the apostles stood up as a united force to speak the Word of God and that is what touched the hearts of people. We can no longer afford to be the divided powerless Church. The lie is overtaking everything, and the world needs to hear the Spirit of Truth from us. The world needs to witness the miraculous movings of God and believe in Him.

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God is faithful to fulfill His promises, but my concern is that we can experience fulfillment and yet not have His presence. We do not want to fall into the trap of seeking for fulfillment instead of seeking God. We need to look at everything we are doing and ask ourselves: “Are we building without His presence? Are we receiving blessings and fulfillment but losing Him?” The blessings and fulfillment are aspects of Him. And we will find everything we need when we seek Him above everything else.

Show Notes:

God is love. And we learn from 1 Corinthians 13 that all the tremendous gifts we receive from Him do nothing for us if we do not have His love. Likewise, we can have marvelous blessings from Him. We can see the fulfillment of prophecies over ourselves and others. We can obtain the promises that He has given us. Yet at the same time we can be devoid of His presence.

Read the book of Ezra. After the Babylonian captivity, the Temple was rebuilt. However, those who remembered the original Temple wept with a loud cry. The Lord’s promised restoration was being fulfilled, but they knew that the Lord’s presence was no longer there. When Moses interceded with the Lord after God determined to destroy the people because of their sin, the Lord said, “You can go and possess the land I promised you, but My presence will not go with you” (see Exodus 33:3). That was unacceptable to Moses. Moses did not want fulfillment if it did not include the presence of God.

It should be unacceptable to us to have fulfillment without His presence. The issue is not fulfillment. The issue is knowing Him. The issue is being with Him and dwelling with Him. The blessings that come out of that relationship are aspects of Him. Do you want blessing? He is blessing. Do you want life? He is the life. He is wisdom. He is truth. He is justice. We can cry for breakthroughs and revivals, but those are outcomes of His presence being with us. Let us be like Moses and cry, “Lord show me Your glory! Let me know Your ways. Let me know You. Then I will have everything.”

Key Verses:

• 1 Corinthians 13:1-3. “If I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.”
• 1 John 4:16. “God is love.”
• Exodus 32:34-35. “My angel shall go before you.”
• Exodus 33:1-3. “I will not go up in your midst.”
• Exodus 33:13-18. “Let me know Your ways that I may know You.”
• Matthew 6:33. “Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.”
• Ezra 3:10-13. “The old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice.”

Quotes:

• “We need the presence of God back in our life, back in our families, back in our churches, back in everything that we're doing. We need to know as believers how to enter into His presence, how to dwell in His presence and live there.”
• “I can't think of anything scarier in my life than to end up with a lot of fulfillment and a lot of blessing and no God, no presence of the Lord filling the things that He’s promised to give.”
• “Yes, we do need an outpouring of His Spirit. Yes, we do need restoration. Yes, we do need revival. But it can't be blessings that we seek. It can't be fulfillments that we seek. It must be Him that we are seeking. It must be His presence that we long for. That will trigger true restoration and true revival in this country.”

Takeaways:

1. The desire of Moses was to know God. It was to know the ways of God. Moses was seeking Him. He was seeking who He is. He wasn't really seeking Canaan land. He wasn't really seeking deliverance from Egypt. He was seeking God. And I think we have to ask ourselves: “Have we lost that focus?”
2. When the Temple was rebuilt, it was devoid of the Shekinah glory that had existed during the First Temple. The Lord’s presence had left and had not yet returned. We must recognize that we can build things even in the will of God. But if we are not seeking Him and His presence above everything else, we end up with fulfillments without Him.
3. We do not want to try to rebuild something that looks like a fulfillment. We want to come into His presence and live with Him. The Lord taught us to pray, “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). But our focus is not on building a kingdom. By this prayer we mean for the Lord and His presence to dwell with us in this land and on this earth forever.

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The fast of Tisha B' Av was a time of mourning over the consequences of Israel’s actions in not following the voice of God. The Lord spoke to Zechariah about this fast: “You did not listen when I called to you. For that reason, I have not listened when you called to Me” (see Zechariah 7:13). This should be a warning to us today. If the Lord is not hearing our prayers, or if we are in devastating circumstances, we should make this Tisha B’ Av a time to repent of our own lack of response to God’s voice. Only then can we activate the promise that He will turn the fast into a feast of rejoicing.

Show Notes:

The fast of the fifth month, known as Tisha B’Av, is considered the saddest day of the Hebrew year because it observes several disastrous events that happened in Jewish history, starting with the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians in 423 BCE. The book of Zechariah records that this fast was observed during the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the Temple after the Babylonian captivity. When Zechariah inquired of the Lord about this fast, the Lord made it clear that Israel and Judah would continue to live with the consequences of their rebellion if they observed this fast for themselves and refused to listen to His voice.

As Christians we cannot look on this fast as something for Jews only. Many of us today have seen what we built being torn down just like the Temple was. We seem to be losing the battles that we are fighting and are living with disastrous circumstances in our lives. Maybe these are outward signs and consequences that God is using to get our attention to lead us into fasting and prayer.

In Tisha B’Av we have an opportunity to look at the times of shaking and shattering in our lives and ask God to bring His grace and forgiveness and restore our relationship with Him. The Lord is always in a process of making all things work together for our good and bringing us into the fulfillment of all that He has for us in our lives. So we enter into the fasting and mourning of Tisha B’Av by faith, knowing that the promise of God is that the Lord will hear us if we turn our hearts to Him—and He will turn our fasting and mourning into days of joy, gladness, and cheerful feasting.

Key Verses:

• Zechariah 7:2-14. “Shall I weep in the fifth month and abstain, as I have done?”
• Zechariah 8:13-23. “The fast … will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts.”
• Leviticus 26:14-46. “If … you act with hostility against Me, then I will act with hostility against you.”
• 2 Chronicles 7:11-14. “Then I will hear from heaven … and will heal their land.”
• Isaiah 58:6-8. “Is this not the fast which I choose?”
• Isaiah 58:9-12. “Then you will call, and the LORD will answer.”
• 1 Corinthians 2:10-16. “For the Spirit searches all things.”
• Psalm 139:23. “Search me, O God, and know my heart.”
• Romans 8:26-28. “He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is.”
• Haggai 2:5-7. “I am going to shake the heavens and the earth.”
• Hebrews 12:26-27 “… so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.”
• Haggai 2:8-9. “The latter glory of this house will be greater than the former.”

Resource:

Learn more about the Fast of Tisha B’Av at chabad.org.

Quotes:

• “Are we seeking the Lord because we’re really seeking Him and looking to find His will and His ways, or are we doing this so that we seem more righteous and religious?”
• “As the Church enters into fasting and crying out to God during Tisha B’Av, I believe there is going to come a reversal of the anti-Semitism in our day to the point that people will say to Jews, ‘Take us with you to the house of God because we heard that God is with you.’”
• “As Christians, we must understand that we have the Holy Spirit to assist us in the process of seeking Him in praying and fasting. Our spirits, guided by the Holy Spirit, are able to search our own hearts and to make us aware of the areas of blindness and disobedience in our lives.”
• “The latter glory of what God is bringing forth in your life will always be greater than the former glory of that which God has allowed to be shaken down and destroyed surrounding you.”

Takeaways:

1. Recognize that God is the Master of your circumstances. Expect Him to turn the negative events and circumstances in your life to good.
2. Look at your circumstances honestly and objectively as places and points of repentance. Know that if you love Him and seek Him with honest repentance, He will bless you. He is shaking you and bringing you into a time of repentance because He has something better for you and wants to bring you a greater blessing.

3.Do what the Lord said to do: He wants us to humble ourselves; He wants us to pray; and He wants us to seek His face and turn from our wicked ways (2 Chronicles 7:14).

Prayer:

Father, by faith we cry to You in the name of Yeshua. Cleanse us of our sin and help us to turn from the wickedness that has brought us into the destructive circumstances that are consuming our lives. Make all aspects of our lives work together for good and pour out Your abundant grace that we might experience a future filled with Your presence and Your glory. Amen.

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Web Description: How do we enter the presence of God? We enter His presence because we will to be in His presence. But what is the energy behind our will? It is hunger. Ask the Father, “Give me the hunger that drives me into You. Help me to stop feeding on those things that are taking away my appetite for You.” Grow the hunger that enters His presence every day. Practice living in His presence and dwelling with Him and functioning in your walk with God in Him.

Show Notes: We should learn through the Holy Spirit to dwell for greater and greater amounts of time in the presence of the Father where Christ is. This is our Christian life. This is where we change. We do not change outside of being in His presence. If you feel like there is too little change in your life, that you continue to dwell on the same level and have all the same problems, then consider how much time you spend in His presence beholding Him. It is when you are beholding Him that you are changed into His image.

In this podcast I endeavor to give some keys that will help us enter the presence of God. And one of the greatest keys is hunger. We know we should be tithing of our time and spending it with the Lord, waiting on Him, worshiping Him, feeding on His Word. But what enables us to do that is a hunger in our hearts that is driven to be with Him. We must have a will that cannot be refused, that keeps seeking and keeps asking and keeps knocking until we abide in His presence and do not withdraw from Him.

The book of Revelation tells us that many people will seek to hide from the presence of the Lord when He returns. They will be unable to accept what they are in the light of who He is. Let us be the opposite of that. Let us be those who learn to live in His presence, drawing near by the blood of Christ “in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water” (Hebrews 10:22). Right now, Christ is the way to the Father and the door we enter through. Right now, you can be with Him where He is. Hunger to be in His presence.

Key Verses:

• John 14:1-6. “I will come again and receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
• John 10:9-10. “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved.”
• Ephesians 2:18. “Through Him we both have our access in one Spirit to the Father.”
• John 3:5-7. “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.”
• 2 Corinthians 3:18. “Transformed into the same image from glory to glory.”
• Exodus 33:12-18. “Then Moses said, ‘I pray You, show me Your glory!’”
• Exodus 34:29. “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone.”
• Hebrews 10:19-24. “Let us draw near … in full assurance of faith.”
• John 17:24. “Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am.”
• Hebrews 11:1. “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for.”
• John 5:19. “The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing.”
• John 12:49. “I did not speak on My own initiative, but the Father … has given Me a commandment as to what … to speak.”
• Daniel 7:9-10. “The court sat, and the books were opened.”
• Exodus 33:20. “You cannot see My face, for no man can see Me and live!”
• 1 John 3:2. “When He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.”
• Daniel 7:13-14. “He came up to the Ancient of Days and was presented before Him.”
• Revelation 5:4-14. “You … purchased for God with Your blood men from every tribe and tongue and people and nation.”
• Revelation 1:10. “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day.”
• Isaiah 6:1-8. “I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted.”
• Matthew 7:7. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
• James 4:2. “You do not have because you do not ask.”

Quotes:

• “If we're going to find the presence of God, if we're going to dwell in His presence, if we're going to stand in His glory, we are going to have that which drives our will to seek after Him and moves our spirit into His presence.”
• “At some point, we've got to be able to stand in the presence of His holiness and be able to tolerate the truth about ourselves.”
• “What is going on in heaven is of the utmost importance to us now. And it's the place we need to learn to dwell to experience the transformation of our being into His likeness, so that we might be able to stand before Him without being shamed away from His presence.”

Takeaways:

1. Hunger to be in His presence. Stop feeding on other things in your life that are satiating you until you have no spiritual hunger. When you are hungry enough for the things of God, you will begin to have a drive that empowers your will to be in His presence.
2. Visualize being in His presence. Read the Scriptures about the worship that is surrounding Him, about the angels and the myriads that are singing, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Become aware of His power and His might, His righteousness, His justice, His glory, and His faithfulness. Let all those things become real to you.
3. Practice His presence so you do not withdraw from Him at His appearing. To stand in His presence is to stand in the presence of Truth. Every fig leaf and every lie you live is stripped away. That is why we must practice dwelling in His presence until the transformation happens for us, and we see Him as He is because we are like Him.

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Do you know how to hide in God? Do you know how to enter His presence in a way that is real and is an immunity from what is going on in the world? At the time of His coming and His return, many will flee from His presence. But we must be those who enter into the secret place of the Most High God and hide in Him. In this age when troubles abound, it is important that we learn how to dwell in the presence of the Lord. Let us cry out for His presence to be in the Church today.

Show Notes: From a theological standpoint we can say that God is omnipresent. His presence is everywhere. And that is true, but we also must recognize that His presence is something we must be seeking. We cannot assign the presence of the Lord to a theological concept or talk lightly about His presence. His presence is necessary in our lives as believers. God's presence is something we must seek after. And once we receive it, it must be retained.

One of the greatest examples in the Scriptures of what it means to have God’s presence is the dedication of the Temple by Solomon. The presence of the Lord filled the Temple like a thick cloud, and the priest could not stand and minister because the glory of the Lord was so overwhelming. And we have seen amazing revivals and outpourings of His Spirit when the glory of the Lord was as real as it was in Solomon’s Temple. Yet the presence of the Lord left the Temple, and the Church has lost the glory it experienced after every revival that I am aware of.

We must understand that the presence of the Lord is something that can be lost. And in this day, I think we have lost His presence in a real way. We have become conditioned to doing things without His presence that is available to us. It is important that we learn to come into His presence. It is important that we see His presence restored to the earth, especially in the time of troubles and persecution we face today. We need to know how to hide in the thick cloud of His presence, in the secret place of the Most High, covered under His wings (Psalm 91). Let us strive to enter His presence.

Key Verses:

• 1 Kings 8:10-13. “For the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.”
• Psalm 27:4-6. “In the secret place of His tent He will hide me.”
• Luke 4:29-30. “But passing through their midst, He went His way.”
• Matthew 7:7. “Seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.”
• Psalm 32:6-7. “You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble.”
• John 14:23. “My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.”
• John 14:17. “The Spirit of truth … abides with you and will be in you.”
• Jude 24-25. “… to make you stand in the presence of His glory blameless.”
• Psalm 16:11. “In Your presence is fullness of joy.”
• Exodus 34:29-33. “Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because of his speaking with Him.”
• 2 Corinthians 3:13. “[We do] not look intently at the end of what was fading away.”
• Genesis 3:22-24. “He stationed the cherubim … to guard the way to the tree of life.”
• Genesis 4:26. “Then men began to call upon the name of the Lord.”
• Ezekiel 10:18-19. “Then the glory of the Lord”
• Ezekiel 11:23. “The glory of the Lord went up from the midst of the city.”
• Exodus 33:1-3. “I will not go up in your midst.”
• Psalm 78:58-60. “He abandoned the dwelling place at Shiloh.”
• Jeremiah 7:11-14. “I will do to the house … in which you trust … as I did to Shiloh.”
• Ezekiel 43:1-5. “And the glory of the Lord came into the house.”
• Ezekiel 37:24-28. “My dwelling place also will be with them.”
• Isaiah 55:6-7. “Let the wicked forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts.”
• 2 Corinthians 5:17-19. “God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself.”
• Matthew 6:5-6. “Close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret.”
• John 14:2-6. “I will … receive you to Myself, that where I am, there you may be also.”
• John 17:24-26. “Father, I desire that they also … be with Me where I am.”
• Psalm 91:1-10. “Under His wings you may seek refuge.”
• Matthew 23:37. “I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.”
• Isaiah 26:20. “Come, my people, enter into your rooms and close your doors behind you.”
• Revelation 6:15-17. “Hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne.”
• 1 John 2 28. “Abide in Him, so that when He appears, we may … not shrink away from Him in shame.”
• 2 Corinthians 3:18. “We … are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory.”
• Luke 13:24. “Strive to enter through the narrow door.”

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I think our concept of tithing loses much of the original emphasis, which was to bring back to the Lord ten percent of the covenant blessings we have received from Him. The Lord’s commandment was to bring the tithe of our produce to the Temple and feast on it in His presence. I want that restored to our thinking. Make it a goal to spend ten percent of your time in the Lord’s presence, feasting on His Word, rejoicing over the blessings He has given you. That is a true tithe.

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Read the Scriptures about the men and women who were used by God in a mighty way. They all had something in common. It was real to them what God said to Adam: “You are dust and to dust you will return.” They all had the revelation of their humble state before God. When we truly get this revelation of our humility, then God can bless us and use us because He is exalted by what He is able to accomplish through dust.

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As we anticipate the end-time, I am concerned that we do not become so bent on seeing judgments that we ignore an important aspect of God’s nature, which is His mercy. God, who is the Creator and Judge of all, has the option and ability to extend mercy to anyone, no matter how heinous the offense. We need to watch our reactions during these days lest we become unmerciful. Our prayer during this time must be that mercy will triumph over judgment.

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If you are praying for oneness in the Body of Christ, then pray for maturity. If we had oneness without our full maturity as sons, we would create another Babel, another Babylon. The ending of oneness at Babel was part of the futility God imposed on all mankind because of our immaturity and rebellion. As a loving Father God restrains us under futility until we are mature enough to accomplish His will. He will grant us oneness. But first we must have maturity.

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As we approach the time of the end, events in the world will be more and more influenced by spiritual forces. I am concerned about this influence relative to anti-Semitism. We as Christians must not become participants with the individuals and nations that are satanically motivated to attack Israel and the Jewish people in these days. We must be able to discern between the spirit of truth and the spirit of error and have the maturity that says, like Christ, “The ruler of the world is coming, and he has nothing in me” (John 14:30).

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As we anticipate the outpourings of the Spirit that are prophesied for the end-time, we must also accept the gifts of the Spirit that come as being essential for our purpose in the end-time. These gifts enable us as God’s people to walk in the Spirit amidst the deception and manipulation by evil spirits taking place in the world. During this Pentecost season let us seek a greater immersion in Christ’s spiritual Kingdom and an equipping by spiritual gifts to be His instruments in the earth.

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On the day of Pentecost Peter linked the baptism of the Holy Spirit to the prophecies of Joel. Yet those prophecies point to an outpouring when Judah and Israel are restored to their land in His Kingdom. Only now are we are beginning to see those prophecies being fulfilled. Therefore, we should not expect an outpouring of the Spirit based on past outpourings in the Church age. We should anticipate the Spirit’s mighty outpouring, in power and judgement, in the Kingdom age prophesied by Joel.

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During the fifty days between Passover and Pentecost, the disciples of Christ experienced deep testing to perfect them until they emerged in the power of the Holy Spirit to fulfill their commission as witnesses to the world. Like the disciples, God does something in our spirits during this time. It is a time of devastation. It is a time of repentance. It is a time of preparation for what God has for us in the next steps of our ministry, our lives, and our relationship with Him.

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This podcast is the third in a series on the crucifixion of Christ. It is important to take time with this subject because a true scriptural understanding of the crucifixion eliminates the mindset, still prevalent within Christianity, that the Jewish people killed Christ and therefore need to be punished. This dangerous lie was a root cause of the persecutions against the Jews, which ultimately facilitated the Holocaust. In this day of growing anti-Semitism, it is imperative that the Church reject any teaching that would justify, enable, or encourage any form of persecution against the Jewish people.

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This podcast goes deeper into the subject of who was responsible for the crucifixion of Christ. The belief that the Jews killed Christ and deserve to be punished can still be found in Christian doctrines. This deep root of anti-Semitism must be removed. We cannot allow this tree to grow again. We must not leave an open door for Church doctrines and belief systems to build a foundation once again for persecution against the Jewish people.

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Throughout Church history, one of the fundamental excuses for the persecution, forced conversion, and killing of Jews has been the idea that the Jews were responsible for the death of Christ. Even today there are Christian doctrines promoting the belief that Jews will suffer and die in the Great Tribulation because they killed or rejected the Messiah. This podcast exposes the lie of assigning blame for the crucifixion by unfolding the true Scriptural and spiritual nature of Christ’s death on the cross.

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As Israel observes Holocaust Remembrance Day, this podcast challenges Christians to look honestly at our doctrines and beliefs that contain anti-Semitism. Because of its anti-Semitism, and actual Jew hatred, the Church bears a great deal of responsibility in the history of the Holocaust. That, in my mind, requires us to work at ending the roots of anti-Semitic beliefs in the Church. I think these things still exist in our midst, and therefore this is something that needs to be focused on and corrected.

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The Lord’s return will happen suddenly when we least expect it. The Lord therefore commanded us to be alert and be ready, because if we are not prepared, we could miss it. We cannot lose our faith because of the delay and the mockers who say He is not returning. Instead, we prepare for His coming by holding fast His Word that is working in our lives to make us ready.

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I believe that the biblical feasts are like windows of opportunity when God provides something specific for us as believers to move into. Passover is such a time that is specifically anointed for the deliverance from slavery and bondage. In preparing for the Passover this year, I am deeply burdened about the bondages that still hold Christians in captivity. And I am believing for this Passover to be a time of deliverance for God’s people.

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As Christians we are taught to receive water baptism, which contains tremendous symbolism. Being put down into the water symbolizes being immersed into Christ’s death on the cross. Being raised up out of the water symbolizes that we are then raised in His resurrection. We must recognize, however, that baptism is not merely symbolic. Being baptized into Christ means that we truly put to death the Adamic nature that desires our own human will in idolatry. We are then raised up to live the new life of Christ that desires only the will of God.

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We are in a war of the will. It is a war that we call the Adamic nature. Adam and Eve lost that war, but Christ came and won the war in the same flesh and in the same conflict with His inner self that we have. He came from the beginning to do the will of God and not serve His own will. By His will to be obedient even to death on the cross, He bought our salvation. This salvation forgives our sin, but it also enables us to serve Him as Lord in our lives and end the idolatry of serving our own will.

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This podcast dives into the Scriptures to unveil the truth behind the Adamic nature. This Adamic nature is rooted in our free will. Paul wrote that evil dwelled within him. What is this evil? It is the will that is determined not to be obedient to anything but itself. The war in us is over our wills, and the salvation that Christ won was won by His will determined to be obedient to God's will. And He won the war for us.

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Many Christians may know about the Feast of Purim and the story in the book of Esther on the origin of this feast, but Christians rarely celebrate Purim or spend much time with the book of Esther. That is a shame because the story of Purim is one of the most meaningful teachings from the Scriptures about spiritual warfare, and it has great significance for us.

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We read in the Scriptures that judgment happens when the Lord’s presence sweeps away the refuge of lies. We can prepare our hearts for His coming by simply being honest with God about our need and not hiding ourselves from our own flesh. Let us come out of the hiding place of lies we built and let the Spirit of Truth lead us into all the truth.

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In this special podcast Gary Hargrave interviews Bruce Larson, who describes his recent trip to Israel. There he visited each of the eight organizations that Hargrave Ministries partners with and donates to monthly. This interview reveals what a tremendous impact our simple donations are making to improve the lives of the people of Israel and all the nations blessed by Israel.

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God imposed futility on creation with the intention that at some point it would be broken. He did it in hope that futility, as we grapple with it, will drive us into becoming like Him and being changed and transformed into His image. That is the only way that creation will be freed from this futility. Lord help us to enter into this and be the ones who can see all creation set free.

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Why do we wait upon the Lord? We wait because of the metamorphosis that takes place in our lives by the Word of God. We are waiting upon Him, but when we connect our waiting to the promises and prophecies of Scripture, a change occurs in us and for us. Our waiting literally connects the invisible realm of the Word spoken by God to the natural realm in which we live.

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We think of waiting on the Lord as a form of meditation. In a sense it is, but it is meditating on the Word; it is not just trying to clear your mind. When we wait upon the Lord, we are waiting for the Word of God to manifest, to jump off the pages of the Bible and appear in the physical world. Waiting on the Lord is an earnest expectation, a moment-by-moment anticipation that we will see the physical fulfillment before our eyes of what God has spoken.

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When asked by John the Baptist if He was the expected one, Yeshua presented His messianic calling card—the fulfillment of scriptural prophecy that John himself witnessed. For Peter, the acceptance of Gentiles was not lawful, but he recognized the fulfillment of Scripture when he witnessed the Holy Spirit fall on the Gentiles. Do we see the fulfillment of Scripture in the events we witness today? The Lord is fulfilling His Words over Israel. Will we recognize the messianic calling card in our generation?

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We hear the terms “the Last Days” or “the End of Time” used quite a bit to refer to things of the Scriptures or the prophetic issues of the time that we live in. But there is something about that terminology that does not quite give us the full sense of what is actually taking place around us right now. It is better to say that we live in prophetic days. As believers, it behooves us to be aware of prophetic fulfillment, because if we do not have this mindset, we lose our sense of our participation in it. This is the day in which we live—and God has chosen to put us in the earth at this time.

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An important question for us to answer as we come into the days of the Kingdom is why we have this block in our natures or in our personalities that we are not able to freely receive the gifts He is giving us. God has already done all that He needs to do through Christ to give us everything pertaining to life and godliness in His Kingdom—and yet we seem to be incapable of just reaching out our hands and receiving from Him all that He has for us.

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Many believers wrestle with the memory of the past sins and problems in their lives and often try to deal with their sin in a way that hinders their walk with God. Since we are at the beginning of a new year, this would be a good time to set our hearts on appropriating the fullness of what Christ has done for us. He has done a complete work and He has left nothing undone!

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The vision of Hargrave Ministries is twofold. Our first mission is to send expository teachings of Scripture out to the world. The second is to minister to the Jewish people and to the land of Israel. Those who search the Scriptures will discover that it is very clear that God has chosen these people and this land and that in this day God is fulfilling His word over them.

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Hargrave Ministries is not just a one-man show. It is the heart and expression of many who have the revelation of the Word in the teaching that is going forth. The purpose of this podcast is to express who we are and what we are doing, and to open the door for others to have this revelation.

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Christmas is a celebration of that moment in time when Yeshua—the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, the King of Kings—was born in a manger as a baby. It is His coming as the Son of man, in human form, to experience life as we do. Instead of celebrating His divinity, we should celebrate His humanity on this day. It is because He came as man, made like us, that He can be our example of how to live in this world and participate in bringing God’s Kingdom to Earth.

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Now we know that Christ was not born on December 25. He was not born on January 7 (when many Orthodox churches celebrate Christmas). Jesus was probably born around the season of the Feast of Tabernacles. But this is not really an issue because any day is a great day to celebrate Christ! And any time is a great time for telling the story of Christ and celebrating God’s love for the world—which was His motivation for bringing His Son into this Earth—and should be our focus at Christmas!

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At Christmas we see such a beautiful picture of God's plan beginning its fulfillment on that night in Bethlehem. However, while this is a time of rejoicing and great joy as the angels proclaimed to the shepherds that night, it is also the story of how satan is determined to destroy everything that God is bringing forth in the earth.

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Many people think Hanukkah is a Jewish celebration that mimics Christmas, providing the Jewish people with a holiday in December to compete with the Christmas season. But this is simply not true. Hanukkah existed before the celebration of Christmas. It is a historically-based event; it is a scripturally-based event; and it has a deep meaning for Christians who celebrate Hanukkah today.

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This is the season for Hanukkah. Although this eight-day celebration occurs near the Christmas celebration (the exact date each year is determined by the lunar calendar), Hanukkah is not a “Christmas wannabe.” It is a completely separate holiday and it began long before Christmas existed. It is important for us to have a real understanding of Hanukkah and to celebrate this holiday with real faith because it has tremendous significance for our lives as Christians.

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It is widely thought in the United States that the pilgrims invented the idea of our traditional Thanksgiving meal, but the very concept of Thanksgiving Day has its roots in the Hebrew Scriptures. The pilgrims would know this and so they gathered for a ceremonial meal to express their gratitude to God that they were alive and their thankfulness that He had brought them safely to this new land.

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Christians often have this idea that things around us should not change. Some of us feel that everything should always stay the same. We feel that way about church, about the service, and about many of the things that we do. God may not change. Jesus Christ may not change—He is the same yesterday, today, and forever—but that does not mean that God is not in a process of changing us.

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As we turn (or return) to the Lord in repentance, we turn away from our wicked ways. It is the sorrow that we experience for our actions that helps us engage in our repentance before the Lord. But there is also a deeper sorrow from God—a sense of mourning—that takes us to a place of greater change before Him. This ability to change only comes from God and through His grace, and it is something we must pursue.

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Repentance is key for believers. We must know how to repent, and we must participate constantly in repentance. But many believers do not understand how to repent. We never see the disciples coming to the Lord and saying, “Oh Lord, teach us how to repent,” and yet it is one of the most important things that we need to understand because of what transpires through and because of our repentance.

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One question on the mind of believers today is that if these are the last days, will we experience and live through the tribulation? Another is the question the disciples asked Yeshua: "What would be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?" These are good questions and important questions for our generation.

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Since its development, the Pre-Tribulation Rapture theory has been taught in many churches as a fundamental and basic building block of faith in Christ. The second coming of Christ is fundamental to Christian faith, but to dictate when and how it happens is not. As we move further and further into times of hardship and tribulation, there is a real danger that many Christians may lose their faith.

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When David established his tabernacle in Jerusalem, he created something new and significant for us today. It was the establishment of a new style of worship that has opened the door for things that we must walk in even today as the Body of Christ.

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The Scriptures say that David was a man after God's own heart. David took the Ark of the Covenant and did something unprecedented by establishing what we call the Tabernacle of David. When he did this, something amazing was revealed about the heart of David—and about why his desire to dwell in the place of God’s presence is so significant for us as Christian believers today.

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We are entering into the days of the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the biblical feasts which is significant for us as Christians because it is an appointed time when God moves to accomplish certain things in our lives. As we look back at this time when Israel dwelt in the wilderness after having been delivered by God out of the land of Egypt, we know that God was testing them. Would they be obedient to Him? Would they trust Him? God wanted to know what was in their hearts.

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Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, which was the one day a year in ancient Judaism that the high priest was able to enter into the holy of holies, pass through the veil, and go into the presence of God. Then he laid hands on a live goat and put upon it all of the sin and iniquity of Israel—which was led away from the camp and into the wilderness to die. On that day, all sin and iniquity, all wickedness of spirit, soul, and body, was removed from the people of Israel and they had access to the holy of holies. In the same way, we are sanctified through Yeshua, our high priest, who was crucified for us, and now we too can enter into the heavenly presence of God.

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When we come into the biblical feasts, we have an open door in the realm of spirit. God is doing something. The Scriptures call these appointed times. As we enter the prophetic season of the Feast of Trumpets, God gets our attention with the blast of the shofar. “Blow a trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm on my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble for the day of the Lord is coming. Surely it is near” (Joel 2:1).

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As we get closer to the days of the Kingdom, we will need to see things happen more quickly and on a greater scale than what we have seen before. We need to open our minds not only to the need for it, but to the possibility of it. However, is there a scriptural precedence to believe for what we can only call mass salvation or mass movings of God through the earth in our day and time?

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As we see the things transpiring in the world around us, it is easy to think God is not in control. Perhaps man is in control. Perhaps the devil is in control. It seems at times that the victory of Christ is nowhere to be seen. So, we need to learn to shift our focus. We need to look up and see what God is doing. Every year the biblical Fall Festivals remind us that God has not lost control—He is still bringing His Kingdom into this earth.

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Sometimes we feel discouraged in times of duress and we feel like we just cannot win. We cannot seem to get over the things that we’re facing. We work so hard to perfect our walk with the Lord, we are seeking Him, and then, just about the time we expect to be fruitful and harvest the blessings in God, something comes and seems to steal it all away. So where is the Lord? Where are the miracles?

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What are you facing in your life? What enemies do you have? Maybe it’s a physical illness that is the enemy against your life right now. Maybe it’s an individual. Maybe it is what’s going on in society that comes against us as the people of God. Whatever your enemies are today, God is here as your salvation. We can get conditioned to think about salvation in terms of the cross of Christ, forgiveness for sin and eternal life. But salvation includes far more and impacts every area of our daily life.

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The answer to the things going on around us and all the issues that we come face-to-face with in this age in which we live is knowing the Lord. There are many ways to approach the idea of salvation, but there are two very important reasons why it is a necessity for anyone living in these times to seek God about a personal salvation experience and then to grow and mature in that salvation experience.

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We hear so much today about global warming and the pollution of our planet and the things that are going on around us. Could the global warming problem have something to do with the relationship between God and the human race? Society does not talk much about this possibility, but do the Scriptures?

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What most of us have heard about Jesus growing up in the relative isolation of a small village of 400 people in the remote hills of Galilee is completely different than the actual burgeoning Greco-Roman metropolis of 30,000 residents where He experienced all there was to experience in those days.

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Just ahead is the fast of Tisha B’Av, which is considered the saddest day of the Hebrew year because several disastrous events happened in Jewish history—the worst of which were the destruction of Solomon’s Temple by the Babylonians in 423 BCE, and the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE. Other events include the defeat of the Bar Kokhba revolt, the expulsion of the Jews from England in 1290, and from Spain in 1492. Christians today participate in Tisha B’Av because we recognize that God brings consequences into our lives that He uses to speak to us.

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Today in our society, we are witnessing the invention of terms such as “woke” and “critical race theory.” We are also seeing the emergence of movements that are focused upon the most negative aspects of mankind. Satan wants humans to focus on our fallen nature because to do so validates it. But when we were created, God said that His creation was very good—not just good, but very good. Not hateful, racist, wicked, evil, and depraved. These qualities were injected into our nature when Adam and Eve got woke.

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We are living in the age when Christ is bringing His Kingdom to this earth. This is a process. The ruler of this world, the devil, is determined to stop God from setting Christ on His earthly throne and establishing the Messianic Kingdom. The devil seeks to continue his reign permanently through eternity as the ruler of this world. He wants to establish his kingdom of darkness on the earth, and he wants to install his sons on the throne to reign over all mankind. Christ describes this process in the parable of “The Wheat and the Tares.”

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A big question for Christians in North America and many other parts of the world where people are allowed into the process of their government is how involved are we to be in the national, political and government upheaval around us? How engaged should we be while knowing what we do about the Kingdom of God?

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We have just witnessed another assault by Hamas against the Jewish people and the State of Israel. The root of terrorist motivation is not political; it is religious—a belief that it is the will of Allah, their god, that the Jews everywhere be annihilated. If the international community cannot or will not eliminate this root, there will never be peace in the Middle East.

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We are like Abraham, sojourners in our land of promise. This earth will be our inheritance when God establishes His Kingdom on the earth and installs His Son, Messiah, as King. In the meantime, we find ourselves living in a land oppressed by the forces of darkness, living subject to the laws, governments, and influences that emanate from the enemy of God.

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We are in this world as ambassadors for Christ. Our involvement in the world should be to serve His purpose, which is to beg people to be reconciled to God through Christ and to infuse the principles of God and His coming Kingdom into this age. We are here as a colony from heaven.

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As believers, we know that it is very important that we have a prayer life. The dictionary defines prayer as a petition or earnest request to God in words or thoughts. Yeshua had a prayer life. He would go out all night by Himself and pray. But do we know that we must also have a life of intercession? Do we understand what intercession is and how it works? The disciples asked the Lord to teach them to pray. It is time we cry out to Yeshua to teach us to intercede.

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Do we find the Holy Spirit at work or manifest in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Scriptures? The answer clearly is, “Yes!” The Hebrew Scriptures are filled with the moving of the Holy Spirit and it is very exciting to see how He moved and the things that He did.

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When we think about celebrating the feast of Pentecost, we tend to focus our attention on the beginning of the Church. But this Pentecost, let us celebrate Christ baptizing us in the Holy Spirit and refresh ourselves in the power that we receive when we allow ourselves to be truly filled with the Spirit.

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We should not think that it is a strange or unusual thing when fiery ordeals or testings come upon our lives. It is necessary for God to refine His people before they can receive the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit to become His witnesses. We must come to the place of Christlike-ness, knowing that we can do nothing of or by ourselves, but all things are accomplished by God through the Holy Spirit in us.

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Just as the Lord led the children of Israel on a 50-day journey from Passover in Egypt to Pentecost at Mount Sinai, He desires to lead all His people on a 50-day spiritual journey every year—from Passover to Pentecost.

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In the Christian church today, many are taught that God has rejected the Jewish people because they rejected Jesus as Savior and Messiah. Therefore, God has rejected them and Christians have replaced them. But what does the Bible really say about Israel and the Jewish people in the last days? What is God’s attitude towards Israel?

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God is no longer just meeting individuals. Yes, it is important for us as Christians to receive Yeshua, because this individual experience of believing in Jesus the Christ brings us salvation and into the covenant that the Lord holds for us. This is a very personal and individual thing that happens between you and the Father who has given His Son to bring about redemption for you. But our salvation goes far beyond this. God does not just save us individually and keep us in a relationship with Him as individuals. He makes us into something that expands the covenant and expands His promises—He brings us into His Body as His people.

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One of the obvious problems of this day and age is a tremendous spirit of division at work in the culture we live in right now. But we are not in a culture war. This is not about the left against the right. It is not about Republicans against Democrats. It is not about any of the wars we see surrounding us. If we try to make it about good and evil, or make it into a political struggle, we become a problem. What we are seeing take place is the end-time battle between truth and lie—the truth against the lie.

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The resurrection of Christ must be understood by believers to really grasp the whole concept of our salvation. The resurrection of Yeshua (Jesus) is one of the “elementary teachings” of the Christian faith. In fact, without the resurrection, there is no Christianity. Once we understand what the Scriptures teach about the resurrection, we can move into a life in God that appropriates the power that is available to us through the resurrection, and we will see the fruit of His resurrection begin to manifest in us.

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The feast of Passover is an important time for Christian believers to celebrate. It is one of the key center points of the Scriptures. Other than seeing Christ come forth in the Earth, Passover is one of the main times when God brings about a tremendous transition. Before this time, God has only worked with individuals. Abraham. Isaac. Jacob. Now, all of a sudden, He is creating for Himself a people. This is a huge change that transpires in the Scriptures. Passover is a time that the children of Israel—and now Christian believers—will celebrate throughout eternity.

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There are many people who have not heard of the Feast of Passover or why we as Christians should be celebrating and observing it. Passover is such a rich experience. It is one of the greatest joys that we have been included in. These things may seem simple and basic to some, but to celebrate this tremendous time is so meaningful within our Christian experience. Everyone needs to have a solid revelation of it. Even those who are well aware of Passover and how to celebrate it will benefit from a reminder of this present truth within us.

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If we are not careful, one of the difficulties we can have as believers in Christ is a tendency to overemphasize the Kingdom of Heaven. Over time, so much doctrine has crept into the Church that is focused on Heaven. We have begun to drift away from our drive to see the Kingdom of Heaven come to the Earth. But we cannot forget that Christ left the Earth with a promise of return. The Messianic Kingdom prophesied in scripture and promised to David—the Kingdom of God—will be coming to Earth!

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Is there a difference between the Kingdom of Heaven and the Kingdom of God? People are sometimes confused about the terminology. But the short answer is that the Kingdom of Heaven is in Heaven, but the day is coming when this heavenly Kingdom will swallow up the world in which we live and the whole earth will become the Kingdom of God and His Messiah.

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These are troubling times. We have been through a lot this last year. Many of us have been severely shaken by the difficulties we have faced. And there may be more to come. The Bible tells us very clearly that as we come into the time of the Kingdom, there will be shaking. So, when we are shaken and when we see things around us being shaken, we should not be disturbed. We know what is going on. And it is those things that are unshakable that will continue to stand!

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Many Christians don't celebrate the Feast of Purim. Some are not even aware of what it is. However, if we read the Book of Esther—about how the young queen and her cousin saved the Jewish people from total annihilation—we understand why the Feast of Purim is truly worthy of celebration by Christians. Purim preserved the way for the Messiah to come. In the Book of Esther, we also find one of the most significant teachings in the scriptures about spiritual warfare and how it works.

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These days, it seems that much of the focus of Christianity is on the church. But 2,000 years ago, the central theme of Yeshua and the disciples in the Gospels was on the Kingdom of God. Yeshua emphasized that His main purpose on earth was to proclaim that “the time was fulfilled and the Kingdom of God was at hand.” Then, following His resurrection, He commissioned His followers to make disciples of the nations. What were they to do? They were to proclaim this same good news—that “the Kingdom of God was at hand!”

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We are God’s creation. He loves all humanity. He made us and put us on the earth. But we sinned, and as sinners, we deserve to be punished for our wrongdoing. However, God has made it possible to be released from that debt. Despite all our sin and iniquity, God was driven by His great love to forgive us. The price that Christ paid for our forgiveness with God also pays the debt our brother and sister owe to us.

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The root of Judaism and Christianity is God’s love. Gary Hargrave demonstrates through connecting Old Testament and New Testament Scriptures how God’s love for us has always been the foundation of His relationship with His people.

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We are conditioned with certain beliefs and practices about what is true as a child, but sometimes those beliefs are traditions of men rather than the commandments of God. As maturing believers, we have the privilege and responsibility to fact-check our faith so that we can grow closer to God.

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We should not be worried about the rapture or the tribulation or what we may go through. We have seen the saints of God all through history go through very difficult times. As difficult as it can be, we need to trust the Lord for what is going to happen in our days. We should prepare ourselves to walk through whatever we must experience, and to accomplish in this earth for the Lord His works during this time period that we are in. We are to do business until He returns with the talent that He has given us. We are to occupy until He comes.

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Sometimes we might wonder why we live in this time, place, and generation. Gary shares from examples of Scripture that we are placed and prepared for the purposes of God exactly where we are.

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God gave each of us a destiny in this time in history. Gary Hargrave explores how discovering our destiny and maturing in Christ impacts end-time events.

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At Christmas we see such a beautiful picture of God's plan beginning its fulfillment on that night in Bethlehem. However, while this is a time of rejoicing and great joy as the angels proclaimed to the shepherds that night, it is also the story of how satan is determined to destroy everything that God is bringing forth in the earth.

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Christmas is a celebration of that moment in time when Yeshua—the Messiah, the Christ, the Savior, the King of Kings—was born in a manger as a baby. It is His coming as the Son of man, in human form, to experience life as we do. Instead of celebrating His divinity, we should celebrate His humanity on this day. It is because He came as man, made like us, that He can be our example of how to live in this world and participate in bringing God’s Kingdom to Earth.

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Many people think Hanukkah is a Jewish celebration that mimics Christmas, providing the Jewish people with a holiday in December to compete with the Christmas season. But this is simply not true. Hanukkah existed before the celebration of Christmas. It is a historically-based event; it is a scripturally-based event; and it has a deep meaning for Christians who celebrate Hanukkah today.

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Hanukkah, the Jewish “Festival of Lights,” may be best known for the lighting of the menorah and the miracle of the oil lasting for eight days in the Temple following the Maccabean revolt. But the true heart of the Hanukkah celebration is the cleansing of the altar and the rededication of the Temple after this small group of Jewish farmers had defeated their enemies. Just as there are eight candles burning on the menorah during the celebration of Hanukkah, there are at least eight good reasons for Christians to celebrate Hanukkah.

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Gary Hargrave shares a timely message about overcoming anxiety through the practice of meditating on God’s Word. He encourages listeners that focusing their minds on truth can change their lives.

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There are some Christians who believe that the church (Christian believers) replaces Israel as the object of God’s promises from the Old Testament. Gary shares what God says about His promises to Israel and supports the idea from Scripture that God’s promises to Israel still stand.

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It is satan’s desire to destroy God’s chosen people (Israel) and the church, but he cannot attack us head on. Instead, he uses tactics to try to force God to execute judgment against those protected by God.

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As the Day of the Lord approaches, we will be faced with many decisions that will have great consequences in our life on earth and in the days of the Kingdom. In the Book of Genesis, we know that God told Adam and Eve not to eat of the tree. They were given the choice whether they wanted to obey God or not obey Him. Like Adam and Eve, God gives us the power to choose. And we are living in days where we must regularly exercise this power.

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God cannot make us do His will because He created us with free will—the ability to choose His way or another. However, we can invite God to empower us by submitting our will to Him.

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The Ninth day of Av is a Jewish fast (Tisha B‘Av) mourning the destruction of the second temple. Gary explores the spiritual impact of this event and how it reveals what is sacred to God. He then encourages believers to hold to what is sacred.

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As we come to the end of the Fall Feast season, what should we do now? Do we kick back and rest? Do we go back to life as we have known it? What is our response? When God’s people returned to Jerusalem following their 70 years of captivity, they restored the Fall Feasts, but soon recognized that these celebrations were not enough—so they didn’t stop there!

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As we celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot in Hebrew), we worship in thankfulness for all that God has done for us in the season that we've just completed, and we prepare our hearts during the Feast for the new season that is now beginning. So, it is very important that we learn about the Feast of Tabernacles and think about what we're expecting God to do for us during this time.

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Once every year God’s people were to build simple shelters outside and live in them with their families for seven days as they celebrated the Feast of Tabernacles. This was a time of joyful celebration and sabbath rest. During these seven days, they were to reflect on the time they spent wandering in the wilderness after coming out of Egypt. But what do these days of Tabernacles hold in store for us as believers today?

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Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, was repeated every year because even after the children of Israel were cleansed—their sins covered—they would sin again and need atonement once more.

As Christians, we know that Christ made a sacrifice once for all. But if we are honest with ourselves, we repent of our sin, we partake of communion, we receive forgiveness for sin—but then we often go back and stumble again. So, we need something more than just forgiveness. This “something more” is what we look for in the fulfillment of the Day of Atonement.

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What will happen in the upcoming year is written in God’s book on Rosh Hashanah. Ten days later on Yom Kippur, God’s books are closed and your fate for the upcoming year is sealed. But these ten days are Days of Awe! Your response to God during this time may cause Him to change His mind and rewrite your book! 

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The Feast of Trumpets was a holy convocation, a day of celebration and rest, when all of Israel came up to Jerusalem to meet with God in anticipation that He was going to do something. This is now called Rosh Hashanah and it is celebrated as the Jewish New Years Day. This appointed time has yet to be fulfilled in Christ, leaving the world to wonder what it will mean when the divine trumpet blows.

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God has appointed seven annual feasts for His people. We have experienced a Christian fulfillment for four of these appointed times, but so far there does not appear to have been a fulfillment of the other three. This gives believers great reason for tremendous anticipation. Why not this year? 

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Jewish feasts commemorate times of blessing and sorrow. The Hebrew Scriptures describe their practice, but should Christians celebrate them as well? Explore Old and New Testament passages in this podcast episode that demonstrate the blessing of Hebrew Feasts for Jews and Gentiles alike.

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We are living in a time that Scripture speaks of, where an epidemic of sickness has come upon God’s people (and everyone else). What does God tell Israel that they are to do when this happens? How is the church to respond? This podcast will unpack a scriptural admonition (2 Chronicles 7:12-16) to give listeners biblical wisdom on how to navigate these tumultuous times.