The Spirit said to Philip. Acts 8:29
So many religions teach that God does not speak to us anymore, we are to use the bible and men teachers to get nourishment of the “word.” But the Spirit does speak to us, and in order to really understand God and who he is and what he wants, we must have and listen to the Spirit. And no one teaches this most important message.
This is why the Spirit is above the law, or replaced the old system of reading scripture and trying to obey the law. God made the point to me this morning that everything is situational. He continued on with what he was teaching yesterday, and many days before over the years. The main verse from yesterday was “any of your people” which the focus is on your people, or the ones who also follow what you follow. In those old testament days they were the Jews following Adonai (some of the time). And the other nations followed whatever made up god they followed. Although some of the nations knew about Adonai and followed him indirectly. And some people went to Israel to become Israelites.
So an example used many times of it being situational, some times God told the King or prophet to destroy the other nation or kill a certain man. Like David killing Goliath, or many nations. And sometimes God said to not go to war with the other nation. There is no law which blanket covers every situation. The law was written for the Jews with other Jews, not the Jews with other nations and belief systems. If it were about the Law, then Adonai would be the first in line to be guilty of not obeying his own law. He has killed trillions of people over the years, everyone dies and it is at his hands.
What Yeshua has taught me is that it is not about dying or not dying, because we all die. And most of us put the focus on dying and our health and many other factors other than knowing and obeying God and letting him take care of our health, wealth and date of death. For each of us it is situational.
It was even situational with his son, Yeshua. What if Adonai sent his son Yeshua when David was King? Most likely David would not have had him killed, but then that is not the plan of Adonai. And in the eyes of Yeshua and Adonai living or dying is not the concern or problem. In our eyes and teachings it is. Many teach it was a travesty that Yeshua was killed like it should not have happened. An old hymn we used to sing in the catholic church, they crucified my Lord, oh oh it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble… The words they teach make you believe it was a bad thing, how could they have put him to death?
The news is he would have died by now anyways, because no man is 2,000 plus years old. And Adonai had a reason or purpose, it was based on the situation. The situation with Yeshua was he was the only one worthy to be able to die a death of sacrifice, the sacrificial lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Because every other man has fallen short and has sinned, except this man Yeshua.
Someone might put me to death because of my beliefs like they did the disciples. But my death will be, and the disciples’ death was different from Yeshua’s, because we cannot take away the sins of the world. We will not be seated at the right hand of the Father, and able to open the scroll. Only Yeshua can. It is situational.
In the old days it was an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth… Yeshua changed it a little, now it is about “vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay.” We are to have no indifference to the sin around us that affects us. And to let God deal with it, he will repay unrighteousness with pain and suffering. In my life I see it over and over, him setting things right, normally because of another man’s stupidity. He did it in my life, from my stupidity. And he will in your life from your stupidity as you remain in your sinful ways instead of repenting and doing things God’s way. Again it is situational, did you put yourself in this situation by doing things your own way, or are you in it because you obeyed God?
Many believe also if you are in God you will not suffer, which is not entirely true. There is a different kind of suffering when you obey Yeshua, but you also know that this suffering is achieving for you a glory that far outweighs it all. It is still suffering and still sucks, especially when you know it is not because of you but because of other people’s sins that you are paying a price. But IF you are in Yeshua doing his perfect will, you know it will work out for your good one way or another. And that the Lord will repay. The Lord Yeshua suffered because of other people’s sins, not because of wrong doing by him. So shouldn’t we also suffer like him? After all this is not his world, under his control. We are simply passing through and the adversary or evil one does not like those few of us who decide to hear and obey the Lord. So of course he will bring suffering to you. To what extent depends on the Lord and what he allows.
As I read also through the book of Job, it teaches clearly how Adonai works. I have not gotten to the part yet where Job says “now I see God!” But that is the main thing, I look back on my life with and without God a part of it. The days when religion ran my life as a catholic, and then the few years of where I was dating the Lord, preparing for the wedding. Where I heard him but had not yet received the Spirit, still in darkness but also seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and moving towards it. One decision to obey at a time, until the Lord had cleaned me up, and shown me how to live a Holy and blameless life in the truth and way of God. In his light or wisdom. Then the Spirit of God could invade me.
Many believe you do not need to be cleansed of unrighteousness and sin to receive the Holy Spirit, but that is not taught in the bible. As a matter of fact in Acts 8:22-24 it says “But Kefa said to him, “Your silver go to ruin — and you with it, for thinking the free gift of God can be bought! You have no part at all in this matter; because in the eyes of God, your heart is crooked. So repent of this wickedness of yours, and pray to the Lord. Perhaps you will yet be forgiven for holding such a thought in your heart.”
Shimon wanted Peter to give him the Holy Spirit also, but Peter could not. His heart was not right with God to receive it. We truly need to understand this, because Shimon did not believe he was doing anything wrong, and after all he was seeking something really good, the Holy Spirit. But because he did not know God nor God’s ways, he was not right with God and able to receive the Spirit.
The religions today teach us in a way where our hearts are similar, they are not in a righteous place to receive the Spirit of God. So the men teachers who tell you are good with God and did receive the Spirit because of your prayers or tradition. They themselves do not know because they have not entered into the Kingdom of God themselves and do not know how it works. They instead quote their bible verses, twist them a little to make it appear you are good with God and have his Spirit while still in sin and God ignores your sin. This is a lie.
And the sad thing is when you tell people this is a lie, they get upset instead of saying OK, how do I receive the Spirit then? What is the truth?
In my life I never had anyone tell me this truth, I learned it first hand from God, through many trials, much testing, even sin in my life. Some of which was allowed by God as he perfected me. I know what Paul was saying when he wrote what Yeshua said “my grace is sufficient.” There will be “situations” where God allows sin in your life because he needs to teach you something, or make something happen. A young child suffering from cancer did not bring it upon themselves, it is the decisions of other people who did it to them. Decisions of the evil forces in control of this world putting trash in our foods and drinks they consume, and the fault of the parents for letting their kid eat and drink it.
It is not the fault of a women being raped for having sex. But there are also times where God allows you to sin to teach you something. Or maybe things have changed some from what God allowed 6,000 years ago to now. For example David and many kings had many wives and concubines. But today we cannot?
So why is it a sin to have sex with more than one woman, when before it wasn’t?
It is situational. I am not saying you can run out and marry more than one wife or just have random sex. That is between you and God. But do not let a man teacher heap up a bunch of rules for you to follow instead of teaching you to hear and obey the Lord. However also keep in mind we are to help take the speck out of our brothers eye after we take the Log out of our own. Which means we make ourselves right with God through true repentance of the things he shows us to repent of. And then reveal it to others so they have the right idea of how God really works and follow him as well. Passing through a short term bout with sin is not a big deal when on the path to God and receiving his Spirit. But staying in sin and believing God is OK with it and has saved you is another and it is a lie. Many things man sees as sinful and wrong are not so with God.
One other thing about situational. When Yeshua was alive he openly spoke out against the Jewish leaders and their hypocrisy. However when he was hung on the cross he did not speak to defend himself. There is a time to defend righteousness and a time to let unrighteousness have its way for the Glory of God and his righteous purpose.
If a man came into my home and wanted to rape my wife and daughters, I would easily kill that man. Unless for some reason God said not to. God wants us strong, not weak. His teachings were to make us strong, and they do make us strong in a different way than we see strength. It was much more difficult to remain silent like Yeshua did with Pilot, than to speak up with truth.
A part of me wants to stop writing what Yeshua tells me, for two reasons. First no one cares and listens and if they do listen they attach instead of seeking the truth I came to know. Second, it puts me at risk of the wrong people reading it and wanting me dead. So it is self defeating. In this case I would prefer to remain silent and just live my life out in peace alone with my God. But I can’t. There may come a day when I can be silent like Yeshua when someone confronts me with their lies. But right now the Spirit will not allow it, and like the other disciples, because I am one now. I must do the work the Lord set out before me and disciple the nations. Or try to.
The most puzzling thing to me about how it all works is why can’t people simply listen and then decide if what you are saying is true or not? Seek for the truth or answer instead of just ignoring it or arguing against it. Staying in the same sick system they have lived in thinking that someday something will change for the better and their life will be better. All my life I have always looked for the best way to do things at the highest level. A lot of that training came with sports, where I was successful and good. Although not the best athlete, I just did things better than most because of wisdom of how to do things the best way. Most people relied on their athleticism. Not wisdom. A few had both like Michael Jordan.
This basic principle applies to all things in life. Seek the best way to do things, the right way (righteousness). And if you do you will find the Lord God. Then listen to him and do as he says and you will perform at a much higher level than anyone else can. This is also seasonal or situational. Because using sales as an example. When it was of the Lord I was one of the best. But when the Lord said no, I wasn’t. Two examples, first was when doing group health insurance. I watched guys with not even half my abilities doing sales and me little to none. However when I did individual health, I was the best. At the time I could not figure out why, but when God told me to move to Baja, it all made sense. I could not have moved and kept up the group health like I could with individual.
Second is with real estate. For many years it was amazing and I was one of the best, the best within my company when with a group. And not just a little, but I was 3 times better in production than the next best agent and did half of the business out of 8 agents. Then about two years ago, sales stopped almost completely. It did for all agents, but for me it was worse. I knew that day would come and we prepared for it, as I knew we should, almost the same as Joseph with the dream of seven fat and skinny cows.
The point is it is situational. I did not all of the sudden lose my abilities to sell. It was the Lord doing things to make it excellent or bad. It is for his good purpose. It is for us to keep listening to his Spirit so we understand what his good purpose is out of it.