Sing,
O daughter of Zion; shout, O Israel; be glad and rejoice with all the heart, O
daughter of Jerusalem. (Zephaniah 3:14)
Our hearts need to be trained in
righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
for
the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Spirit. Romans 14:17 (NASB)
We have a tendency to think of the
Kingdom of God as a condition of our behaviors or who we associate with, the
church we go to. The Apostle Paul is
making a distinction in this scripture between "eating and drinking"
or behavior management versus righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
A little word which is usually
overlooked as significant is the word “in”.
“In” in this verse is the Greek word “EN” which is contrasted with other
prepositions “eis” or “ek” which mean into or out from. En means to be in a place. In this context, it means to be “in” the
place of the Holy Spirit. This is a
place of unity with the Spirit that comes from drinking and eating of the
Spirit. This is a place of communion, of
oneness.
The principle command of God begins
with oneness. Mark 12:28-
One
of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had
answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of
all?" Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'HEAR, O ISRAEL! THE LORD OUR
GOD IS ONE LORD; AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND
WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.'
"The second is this, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is
no other commandment greater than these." (Mark 12:28-31).
The original Hebrew that is being
quoted by Jesus is Deuteronomy 6:4:
(Deuteronomy 6:4) שְׁמַ֖ע
יִשְׂרָאֵ֑ל יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵ֖ינוּ יְהוָ֥ה׀ אֶחָֽד׃
The command begins with Sh’ma. We translate this word as hear or listen, or
if we know a little more Hebrew, we know it implies obedience, a true act of
listening. But the word is even
deeper. It literally means, “to listen
with the breath”. This is an act of
matching breathing rhythm. In NLP, the
study of using body language patterns and cues to come into rapport with
another, matching breathing rhythms is a way of coming into oneness with
another. So when we look at the
scripture in this deeper Hebraic world view, we that it means to be in such an
intimacy with God that His breath becomes our breath. In that place covenant is occurring,
oneness.
God’s Spirit is His breath, His
rhythm. Take a minute, now and tune-in
to His breath with your breath. Open
your spirit, release fear and anxiousness and allow yourself to sh’ma, to
listen with your breath.
You see oneness is more about opening
our heart to Him than about anything else.
In this place, there is righteousness,
peace and joy. Righteousness is first
expressed in scripture as the credit that Abraham received when He trusted
God’s prophetic declaration, when He sh’ma-ed the Lord.
Then
he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness. (Genesis
15:6).
The word believed is from the root
“amen”. This Hebrew word is made up of
the three letters ALEPH, Mem, and NUN.
Mem means water or liquid such a blood.
Nun means seed and Aleph means strength of the Father. So, in this scripture the Father is imparting
to Abram, the fatherless one, His strength to be the Father of many. Look upwards a few verses here in Genesis
15:1-5:
After
these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, "Do
not fear, Abram, I am a shield to you; Your reward shall be very great."
Abram said, "O Lord GOD, what will You give me, since I am childless, and
the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?" And Abram said, "Since
You have given no offspring to me, one born in my house is my heir." Then
behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, "This man will not be
your heir; but one who will come forth from your own body, he shall be your
heir." And He took him outside and said, "Now look toward the
heavens, and count the stars, if you are able to count them." And He said
to him, "So shall your descendants be." (Genesis 15:1-5).
Ok, first of all “who” came to
Abram? The “word” of the Lord. We know from John 1, that the word of the
Lord is Jesus, Yeshua, the Son of God.
In
the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He
was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and
apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. (John 1:1-3)
And
the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of
the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)
So, the “word of the Lord” came to
Abram in a vision and spoke. “Do not
fear, I am a shield to you, your reward shall be great”. Abram was near the end of his life and the
only reward that mattered to him was a legacy, an inheritance.
The creative “word” of God speaks a
Holy seed which will come from Abram’s own body into Sarah’s womb. The Word takes Abram outside and shows him
the stars and states “so shall your inheritance be”.
Then, the verse that is the basis of
our sonship is written:
Then
he believed in the LORD; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.
(Genesis
15:6)
The
Word of God, the breath of the Father in spoken form, the Son, is received
face to face, breath to breath, spirit to spirit, and the strength of the
Father, the Amen, is manifested and this produces righteousness.
In other words, we could say that
righteousness is really oneness with the breath of God. When our spirit comes into unity with His
Spirit, then the description of that is righteousness. We are in harmony with Him. Look at Galatians 3:6-9:
Even
so Abraham BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS.
Therefore, be sure that it is those who are of faith who are sons of Abraham.
The Scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith,
preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, "ALL THE NATIONS WILL
BE BLESSED IN YOU." So then those who are of faith are blessed with Abraham,
the believer. (Galatians 3:6-9)
You see, Abraham who was a fatherless
father, received the strength of the blood-power to become the Father of “Am”,
nations or peoples, the seed of sonship, and when we receive the Son, we
receive that same seed and so we become sons of Abraham. There is no people of God apart from the
sonship seed, the strength of the Father.
When we become born again, we sh’ma, we listen with our breath, our
spirit to the Holy Breath, the Holy Spirit and become ONE with Him. This is righteousness, unity breath to
breath, face to face, heart to heart.
Now, through the sh’ma, we get a
glimpse of what it means that faith comes by hearing. The Amen comes through the sh’ma. The strength of the Father comes into our
lives, His promises, His decrees over us, His destiny for us, comes about when
we listen with our breath. Our spirit
matches His Spirit and we are in unity.
The question then becomes, “how do we listen with our breath?”
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