My thesis is that God originally created the universe to make a place where he could create a people separate from Himself to relate to as friends and family. Sin was necessary to make us separate from the Father. Once that happened, these new people needed to learn the rules and be free to choose to love God or to reject Him. This series has been about learning how to talk with God and to have fellowship with Him.
This will change your life. One reader was delighted and very vocal about wanting to make this part of her life. What a joy it is to see that desire in a person. But there also seemed to be some confusion.
One person asked a direct question:
I’d never been asked about that. I wrote carefully about how to discern the source of the thoughts in our minds. With practice, and by testing and verifying, you can make it clear when God is talking to you. Again, I emphasize PRACTICE.
I practice by asking the Lord for His position on almost every decision I make in a day from “Is it time to get up?” To, “Is it time to go to bed?” These are not frivolous questions. They are the questions I always used to ask myself during the course of daily living. I discovered that my answers were kaka—worthless. I didn’t know enough. So, I began turning to the Lord with all my questions. For He is omniscient.
Sometimes it matters a lot. I have always asked, “What route do you want me to drive home?” It’s a common question and He used to lead me to entertaining routes back when I had a car. But on one occasion I found out later that by taking the route He directed me to, I avoided a horrendous crash that had killed people. I found that to be very interesting, and filled it away in my mental storage I use for info like that.
But in answer to the question in the subhead above, there is no way to share my internal mental experiences with anyone else. Period. So the answer is, I don’t. The validity is between the Lord and me and I have found it to be a trustworthy method of sharing information with my best friend, Yeshua Messiah. It’s all by faith. He makes sure that it remains in faith. That means that the proof is always subjective.
However, I wish I knew what I know now back when I was regularly asked to make judgement calls on whether a prophecy or spiritual gift was from the Lord. I could do that easily now. Back in the day, it was uncomfortable to do that. Yet, it needed to be done. Read 1 Corinthians 14 about how to run a church service down at verses 26-33.
Verse 29: Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others weigh what is said.
When Pat and I had a church, that type of question was common. But that was back when I was first beginning to get serious about hearing from the Lord accurately.
At some point in our Christian growth, hopefully, we begin to realize that though the Lord knows us entirely—we know Him much less than that. Our useful knowledge begins when we start asking, “how can I please the Lord?” Or better yet, “What pleases you, Lord?” For example, He told me once in answer to a direct question from me, “I like being called Yeshua. It brings back fond childhood memories.” But He still responds to Jesus, Jesús, and all the other names from the various languages. In English, I guess we should call Him Joshua, the Anointed One. But that has never become popular.
It becomes immediately apparent that we must know more about God than His feats in the scriptures. We do have some idea of His character by looking at I Corinthians 13 and the fruit list in Galatians 5. But something is still missing. Part of the key is found in the following verse, spoken by Jesus.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. [Matthew 11:27]
This loop of oneness seems wonderful to me. How do I get within it? It already happened when the Holy Spirit called me to know Jesus. I want to be one of those to whom Jesus chooses to reveal the Father. I want to get into this knowing thing. What do I do?
Our life in the Kingdom all starts with repentance as I realize all my sin and then ask Jesus to forgive my sins and be my Lord and King. At that point you have little or no idea what this means in terms of how much you are going to change for the better.
However, this new life doesn’t just happen. You cannot pray a sinner’s prayer and just go back to your normal life. God requires you to become actively involved in your own spiritual growth. Though it is true that the Lord occasionally just does things to and for people because of a particular call He has on their life, the norm is that the things that really help our growth must be asked for. God will not force Himself upon you. He wants friends and family who have freely chosen to love and serve Him.
But yesterday, for example, He gave me one of those rare “times of refreshing”. It would take several hundred words to explain what He did. It was a flurry of things over several hours. PLUS, it has now faded back into faith and I can no longer remember the actual feelings—just that it happened. Faith is a strong training tool. God’s wisdom is stunning—yeah, I’m awestruck. If God just laid these things on us, we might just lay back and do nothing—eating bonbons and having fun. Plus, unless we ask, we often have no idea what we are getting. You must seek His face to learn.
Therefore do not be anxious, saying,
‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or
‘What shall we wear?’
For the Gentiles seek all these things; and
your heavenly Father knows that you need them all.
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be yours as well.
Matthew 6: 31–33
Asking is a part of seeking and knocking.
Part of the asking is learning what we are asking for.
Regardless, God often will not to do anything until we ask for it.
“Keep asking, and it will be given to you;
keep seeking, and you will find;
keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you.
Matthew 7:7 CJB
This makes it clear. [Sometimes He waits until He and I know I’m sincere.]
Growth without “resources”
There are countless stories of how the underground church grew in the Soviet Union where you could be killed for having a Bible. God sovereignly helps people in these straits. The Holy Spirit led them to meetings without announcement. He taught them scripture when they had no Bibles. He is not limited like we are. Recently God has given me a wonderful Messianic Jewish friend who knows Hebrew and Greek well. He’s taught me wonderful things. But I’ve discovered that many of the things that are considered normal in His circles the Holy Spirit taught me directly. I’m discovering the truth of the New Covenant—HaShem has written the Torah on my heart and enables me to live it out. What a good God I love and serve.
Ask your father like a little child, it gives Him joy.
Though church doctrine commonly says it is true that you can be saved without what we now call the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, I’m not sure about that. It might be true that this empowerment of the Holy Spirit is actually required. I do know that if we want this immersion into the power of the Holy Spirit, all we need to do is ask for it. The norm is that it comes with the laying on of hands by believers who have already received this empowerment with the manifestation of the ministry gifts of the Holy Spirit—but Yeshua can do it directly if you simply ask Him.
When I was introduced to the Lord, they told me to ask. They all laid hands on me and prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit to happen. Then as I left later that night, they told me I had done everything I was required to do—by asking Jesus to do it. The Baptism of the Holy Spirit had happened to me. I was to walk in faith and see it work itself out in my life. That is what happened in my life over the next six months—no emotion, no fuss. It simply became real in my daily walk.
With this immersion into the Ruach HaKodesh, our communication with God is greatly enlarged. The gifts of the Holy Spirit listed in I Corinthians 12 become much more active in our lives [whenever two or three are gathered—so they work in marriages]. The Holy Spirit has much more obvious access to our consciousness once we have given Him permission to do that. But we still need to ask for help.
Praying in our prayer language gift is probably the most powerful tool to help us communicate with God and access His power—especially in spiritual warfare. Gifts of knowledge and wisdom are probably second and third. Prophecy gives us concrete examples of the mind of God. But it is all still external as far as intimate communication is concerned. It is still watching the Lord work even though He is working within us. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is only the beginning.
More and more I find that I want to understand God better. I want to be able to talk with Him. Not just ask Him for things and not just hear Him give me directions, but I increasingly want to discuss things with Him—have a dialog.
After all, I want to follow Jesus and do what He and the Father want me to do. God’s opinions and advice are what I seek and what I want. His opinion is the one that counts. It’s dawned on me that I need to ask for this also.
Don’t hesitate to pray now
Ask the Lord for that oneness Jesus talked about and that you hope for. We’ll learn more as we grow. But asking as we go is a good thing also.
Here we come to the core of this little series. My dad in the flesh taught me this very early on, but I was not ready to understand it then. I barely understand it now—over 52 years later. It is glorious beyond my imaginings. But this is the key to the Gospel, the amazing plan of God from the beginning of time. Jesus came to call us, enable us, and prepare us for this.
…this is eternal life, to know You and Jesus the Messiah whom you have sent John 17:3
The Greek word used here for know is ginosko which means to understand completely. But it has another common meaning and I am convinced that this additional meaning is part of what Jesus is praying here.
Let’s take a little side step. Knowing in scripture is commonly used to describe the most intimate relationships between husband and wife.
Adam knew Eve and she conceived and bore Cain [Genesis 4:1]
Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son… [Genesis 4:25]
The word here is yada which in Hebrew means to know by observing, thinking, and experiencing. Nelson’s Expository Dictionary explains that it also means that the knower (in this case us) has “actual involvement with or in the object of knowing”. The knower has direct contact which is why this word is also used to describe sexual relationships. This is knowing of deep involvement and direct knowledge.
In the New Covenant, ginosko means very much the same thing. It means to understand completely in a relationship. Vine wrote that this knowing is obtained “not merely with intellectual activity, but by operation of the Holy Spirit…”
So we are not wrong to rephrase the core truth of Jesus’ prayer in John 17:3, by saying eternal life is knowing God as a husband knows his wife, as a wife knows her husband—even though we know it is much more than that. This central statement comes at the beginning of Jesus’ priestly prayer—John 17.
In John 17, Jesus goes on to explain verse 3 more completely in verse 20 & 21. After talking about how this knowing applies to His relationships with His disciples, he prays for their protection and sends them out to do what he did when He came to us. He continues with statements that apply to us directly. Here we see that this applies directly to us—the believers of the 21st century.
I am praying not only for these who you gave me in my life here on earth but also for all who will ever believe in me through their reports. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. I pray that they may be in us so that the world will believe you sent me. John 17:20–21
Now I ask you, do you think that this priestly prayer of Jesus while He preparing to die was answered completely? Of course it was and is! During His ministry, his anointing by the Ruach HaKodesh was so complete that His prayers were always answered. He was one with the Lord God, the Messiah sent by God. If He prayed we would be one—we are one. I believe we will fully realize this at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb in Revelation 19.
Now we get to the core of things. We have arrived at God’s eternal purpose for us. The problem, of course, is that like many of the truly important things shown us by the Holy Spirit, scripture only points us toward the truth of these things. They are not for the immature. They are for believers trained by experience. They are for those talked about in Hebrews 5.
…solid food is for the mature,
whose discernment is trained by constant use to distinguish good from evil. Hebrews 5:14
Again I ask you to pray that the Holy Spirit will show you whether this is all true or not. I am convinced that it is and this resolves our spiritual place in creation.
As mentioned, this essential knowing is the type of knowing experienced in committed, believing, covenanted marriage. This is why the gay activists are working so hard to destroy Godly marriage—not that they have any understanding of what they are doing.
Paul tells us the importance of marriage in Ephesians 5.
As the Scriptures say, “A man leaves his father and mother and becomes united with his wife, and the two become one.” This is a great mystery—an illustration of the way the Messiah and the church are one.
Ephesians 5:31–32
No, it is not a mystery! It was to Paul because he was not ever married. But to us who have experienced Christian marriage, this oneness is a reality that we understand. The oneness we experience with our spouse is amazing and it is just a foretaste of what is to come.
Commonly, married couples start out as near opposites. By the time you have been married over 30 years, your oneness is an established fact. Pat and I are very different people. It was difficult work to make our marriage become what it was designed to be. (If you have taken your covenant seriously, and worked at it by grace.) But there is no doubt that we were both changed for the better and that we were no longer primarily two separate individuals—we were one married couple. We became one and the Lord is the major part of that oneness.
When I first wrote about this nearly twenty years ago I said—Today I am dealing with my inadequacies as a husband. I stupidly did something [again] that hurt my wife. I can ask her to forgive me and ask the Lord to forgive me—but the fact remains that I hurt her emotionally and spiritually by being unwilling to take a husbandly stand and risk a confrontation. I was weak and it cost both of us.
Thank God He could fix it and we could go on. We found that to be true countless times during our marriage, before Pat got to go home. He had things He needed to teach me, personally. I am grateful for what He has done.
The good news is that in our marriage with Jesus, we will find no flaw in Him. He is the perfect husband for us whom we can trust completely and serve with joy. Let’s look at Paul’s description of the husband.
Husbands love your wives, just as Jesus loved the church.
He gave up his life for her to make her holy and clean,
to be able to present her…holy and without sin.
Husbands ought to love their wives as they love their own bodies…
No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it…
Ephesians 5:25–30
This is tightly paraphrased and condensed to make to basic principles more visible. Many teachings about marriage focus on the woman’s submission to the husband’s lordship. It is true that the wife is to respect her husband in all things, acknowledging that he is responsible for the marriage.
But look at what is laid on the husband. Any woman would have little or no trouble submitting to a husband who acted like Jesus—a husband who gave up his life to serve, cherish, and nourish his wife. A husband focused on enabling his wife to do what she knows she is called to do. A husband who did everything he could to help his wife become pure, spotless, holy, and clean. I didn’t do it very well. But, this is what the Lord told me before I asked her to marry me. I was to do this for Pat, and her call as a true pastor & mentor & counselor—a shepherd of sick sheep.
With this understanding of the character of the husband, let’s take a look at the wifely responses to her husband’s lordship and love. The wife’s role is very different. This is the helpmate created by the Father to help the groom. Let’s take a look at what is said in Genesis.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone; I will make a helper that fits him.” [Genesis 2:18]
This throws a different light on things, doesn’t it? The wife comes out of this context—the need for a strong helper suitable to the man. I don’t want to put too much on this, but Jesus is the second Adam. It seems likely that we are the second Eve. Could we really be the helper suitable for Jesus? That is certainly what scriptures seem to be saying.
Paul’s argument that Jesus is the second Adam is found in chapter 5 of Romans. His exposition states that Jesus undid all the damage from Adam’s sin.
I fully realize that this is a little stretch, but let’s take it out a little further. If Adam needed a helper, does Jesus need one as well? We are clearly called His bride. What did Adam say about his created helpmate? God had created Eve from Adam—specifically using a rib of his.
“At last!” the man exclaimed. “This one is bone from my bone, and flesh from my flesh! She will be called ‘woman,’ because she was taken from ‘man.’” This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. Now the man and his wife were both naked, but they felt no shame. Genesis 2:23–25
So, how does this compare with our relationship with Jesus? Very well, actually. Jesus was the first son born of God. He needed someone to relate to closely and a strong helper. Now, why the Messiah would need a helper is beyond me (we’ll find out in the new creation), but let’s take it where it goes here. In the new creation, we’ll be like Him.
We are made out of Jesus in a very real way. John tells us in the third chapter that our birth from above is like this:
Jesus replied, “It is absolutely true that no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of both water and the Spirit.
Humans can reproduce only human life (flesh reproducing flesh), but
the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) gives birth to spiritual life.
So don’t be surprised when I say, ‘You must be born from above.’
John 3:5–7
Jesus was the first man born of both man and God. Mary and the Father were Jesus’ parents. So, He was the first in the Kingdom of God (appropriate that the King be first). I am a stepfather, so I understand some of what Joseph was called to do.
But as reborn believers, we also are born of the flesh and of God. Jesus makes it clear that we must be born of both. Don’t be confused by the fact that we have two fathers. So Jesus can say,
For this reason Jesus is pleased to leave the Father and cleave to his wife who is us. But this is far superior to the earthly version. Just like Passover is the symbolic image of what Jesus did on the cross, marriage is the symbolic image of who we become in the Kingdom of God.
The Bride is not spoken of much in scripture, but the image in Revelation 21 is stunning.
Then I, John, saw New Jerusalem, God’s holy city,
coming down out of heaven,
prepared as a bride dressed up for her husband.
[Revelation 21:2]
In Revelation 21:9 we are told exactly what we are:
And who is this bride but us? We are those born of flesh and the spirit. We are man reborn from God. No one else is in that city. And we are all one: Father, Holy Spirit, Jesus, and us. New Jerusalem is a single organism of which we are part. There is no separation there. There is perfect communication there.
Now that we have established that we are indeed the wife of the Messiah, we need to look at how the wife is to behave. Let’s paraphrase that also to see what is actually said, and see how it applies to us as believers.
Wives submit to your husbands as to the Lord…
a wife should submit to her husband in everything…
the wife must respect her husband.
[Ephesians 5:22–33]
First, let’s remember that verse 21 says: “being submissive to one another in the fear of God.”
But, the English definition of submit is a little negative.
To yield oneself to the power or authority of another: to submit to a conqueror.
To allow oneself to be subjected to some kind of treatment: to submit to chemotherapy.
To defer to another’s judgment, opinion, decision, etc.: I submit to your superior judgment.
In the Greek, the word definition becomes a little more clear. It’s more like voluntary subordination than forced groveling. The word is hupotasso, and the lexicon gives us the following:
to arrange under, to subordinate
to subject, put in subjection
to subject one’s self, obey
to submit to one’s control
to yield to one’s admonition or advice
to obey, be subject
It’s a Greek military term meaning “to arrange [troop divisions] in a military fashion under the command of a leader”. In non-military use, it was “a voluntary attitude of giving in, cooperating, assuming responsibility, and carrying a burden”.
In the world, it’s no wonder wives have so much trouble with this. How can you submit unless you trust your husband completely? We know that no human is trustworthy except for Jesus. Just as it is difficult and rare for a man to truly love and enable his wife, it is also difficult and rare for a woman to truly give herself into helping her husband. Actually, it is clear to me that the woman commonly does a better job.
It’s a waste of time here to even get into the inadequacies of man. Someday the Lord might ask me to write a book on marriage and the responsibilities of the man and the woman. But true marriage is only possible in the Lord. It is an institution that He ordained. Anything less than a covenant between God, a man, and a woman is not really a marriage in the Christian sense.
But you need to understand that a man needs a strong smart woman who is able to help the two of them do what the Lord is calling them to do. He needs a woman with a sharp mind and developed skills who knows how to use both of those abilities. Basically, these things are only possible by the power of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God. They are so contrary to our flesh, that even under the power of the Holy Spirit they are extremely difficult.
But here we are talking about building a marriage relationship with Jesus himself. Try to imagine how deeply the Ruach HaKodesh (Holy Spirit) is invested in this process. He will do anything He can—and obviously that is a great deal—to enable us to submit to our Lord.
He wrote a whole book on the subject that we call the Bible. How much of the Bible is about submission?
Obedience is better than sacrifice: 1 Samuel 15:22
Humble yourself under the Lord: James 4:7–10
Put others first: Philippians 2:3–4
Serve the Lord with gladness: Psalm 100:2
Make all your requests unto Him: Philippians 4:6
Repent and hang your old man on the cross: Romans 6: 3–11
Ask for the Holy Spirit: Luke 11:13
It’s impossible to please God without faith: Hebrews 11:6
The longer I live in the Kingdom the more I realize that putting myself under His lead and guidance is essential to my survival. Whenever I try to put myself forward, I quickly realize the stupidity of that course of action. My only hope is to submit to His wisdom, knowledge, and love. Increasingly, all I want to do is please Jesus.
Exactly, in that manner, I have come to see this as my wifely behavior to my husband, Yeshua Messiah. I love my place in the Kingdom as much as I love Him. He is worth it all!
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