ACADEMIC
KNOWLEDGE VS. THE TRUTH – Part 5
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Master, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Master.
If we hold fast our dedication to being His disciples, there is no
limit to what the Holy Spirit can reveal to us.
If and when we waiver on this purpose of heart, we become the
doubleminded man who can expect to receive no spiritual insight or revelation
at all from IAUE. This kind of consecration
of our life to Messiah is the most basic object of the gospel. If we are not
willing to forfeit all to Him, we are not worthy to be called His disciple (see
Luke 14:26-35). If we purpose in our
heart to cleave to our Master, then we are going to live the most exciting and
rewarding life possible to man.
Today, we conclude this study. We have observed that there are many
obstacles to our receiving the Truth when we study the Scriptures. Those we have listed (which, by no means, is
an exhaustive list) are:
1. Human intellect.
2. Not DOING what the Scriptures tell us to do.
3. A carnal/natural mind.
4.
Not relying/depending on the Holy
Spirit.
5. Lack of understanding righteousness / dullness
of hearing.
6. Doublemindedness.
7. Not being purposed of heart to cleave to
Yahushua.
All of these obstacles
have something in common. They all
betray a lack of total commitment to discipleship to Yahushua Messiah. I recall a story I heard of a young boy who
went fishing with his grandfather.
Sitting on the banks of the river, the boy asked his grandfather what
the secret to success was. In an
instant, the grandfather grabbed his grandson and shoved his head under the
water and held him there. The boy,
fighting and twisting with all his might, tried to get free of his grandfather’s
grip to get his head out of the water.
After what felt like a very long time, the man lifted his grandson out
of the river water. The boy took a great
gasp of air; and as would be expected, he yelled at his grandfather asking him
why on earth he did that. The man looked
at his grandson and said when you want success as much as you wanted that last
breath, you will find it.
The religious culture
in the Christian world, today, rewards even the most half-hearted efforts of
believers who start something, then quit or fail to complete it. They even make jokes to laugh about how it
was too difficult a task to have even tried.
Attendance at a church service is proof enough that they are faithful to
Yahushua. No one, absolutely no one,
ever asks another if they are overcoming temptation in their lives; or if they
need prayer to overcome any sin or weakness in walking uprightly before the
Master. It just isn’t done; because it
simply isn’t that big of a virtue in the minds of the contemporary
congregation. If you are happy and you
mingle with others at put-luck dinners or church fellowships, you are accepted
as one of the in-crowd.
Discipleship to Messiah
must be to us as that boy’s next breath.
We must so extremely desire to learn of Yahushua and become like him in
every single way that we might be able to say, “If you have seen me, you have
seen the Master.” Our greatest glory
should be that others can see Messiah in us.
Colossians 1: 27 To whom Elohim would make known what is the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Messiah in you, the hope of glory:
28 Whom we preach…
Paul preached the good
news of Messiah to everyone he could.
His purpose was to birth Messiah into each person through the New
Creation (Galatians 4:19). Messiah in us
is our hope of glory. Paul preached a
person, not a message (“whom we preach…”). We have discussed in previous lessons that
when a person is born again, it is the actual spirit of Yahushua who becomes
the animating force of our life. James
tells us that as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is
dead (James 2:26). When we are born
again, the spirit that used to animate our physical body is replaced with the
spirit of Yahushua (Galatians 2:20). We become “in Messiah” and Messiah becomes
“in us” in the exact way he prayed might happen in John 17. Paul told the Colossians that our own new
spirit, our new life, now, is hidden with Messiah in Elohim (Colossians 3:3).
What does all of this
have to do with receiving the “Aha!” moments of revelation when reading and
studying the Scriptures? We are not to
read the Scriptures just for the academic information that any human intellect
might glean. No, we look for Messiah who
is within us to be reflected upon the pages of the Scripture. We see him who is within us shining his face
back to us.
2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Master, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the
Spirit of the Master.
When our hearts are
wholly committed to the Master, the Scriptures become a mirror showing us what
he, who is within us, is like.
Discipleship, by its very nature and definition, is a compete giving of
one’s self to the instruction of a master, in order to know what he knows, be
what he is, live as he does.
Discipleship intends to reproduce the master in one’s life. When we approach the Scriptures with this
objective, revelation will become a way of life. Messiah will shine his Truth to us, and we
will shine him to the world around us.
This is the process of our being the light of the world.
Remember the obstacles
we have discussed. We cannot afford to
live our lives with one foot in the Kingdom of IAUE and another foot in this
world. This is no half-hearted venture
we are pursuing. It isn’t a game. It
will cost us everything.
Proverbs 23:23 Buy the truth and sell
it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding.
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