FUNDAMENTALS
OF DISCIPLESHIP
2 Corinthians 4:6 For Elohim, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of Elohim in the face of Yahushua Messiah.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of Elohim, and not of us.
7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of Elohim, and not of us.
Last
week’s post ended with this comment:
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How is it that we find ourselves continuously doing
those things that our discipleship to Yahushua prohibits? It is because
we have not purified our hearts and renewed our minds. As we have said a
few times now in prior lessons, we MUST have a renewed mind that no longer
thinks like men think, in order that the actions of our body might be given automatically
to the performance of the will of Elohim. Without a renewed mind, this is
the process:
- Elohim
reveals His will to our spirit.
- Our conscience
perceives what Elohim has placed in our spirit.
- The
conscience relays His will through our heart to our understanding.
- An
unrenewed mind takes note of the revelation of Elohim's will and then makes
its judgment upon it.
- Our own will decides what we will do and the body acts accordingly.
In so doing, even if we judge that we will do the
revealed will of Elohim, we are still in prideful disobedience, for we have
consented only that it is not inconvenient to our self-interest to do what He
wants us to do; thus maintaining the ascendency of our own will over the will
of Elohim.
Let me see if I can make this clearer. When we believe that we have
received divine guidance...when we perceive in our understanding anything that
Elohim wants us to do or say; and we "evaluate" Elohim's will in
terms of its practicality, its benefit, its risks or its cost to us, we are not
thinking with a renewed mind. We are thinking in that same
self-preservation mode that cost Yahushua His life; where, upon the stake He
endured the shame and the reproach of all men's worst imaginations, and bore
Elohim's judgment upon man's sinful will.
A renewed mind looks unto the hearing of the
Father's will as His daily bread. A renewed mind does not evaluate
Elohim's will in terms of personal preferences or even based upon human embarrassment,
inconvenience, cost, pain or suffering. Yahushua never promised that
following the Father's will was going to be a cake-walk. The New
Testament writers assure us that a life of discipleship to Yahushua necessarily
involves suffering. Discipleship to Yahushua mandates that our minds become
renewed by the Word of Elohim to recognize the will of Elohim as though it were
our own will. We never violate our own
will. We trust it implicitly. We must
recognize, however, that OUR will is unreliable and wicked; and only the will
of IAUE can be trusted implicitly. We
can only trust our own will to lead us in the wrong direction every time.
2 Corinthians 4:6 For Elohim, who commanded the light to shine out of
darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the
glory of Elohim in the face of Yahushua Messiah.
Yahushua knew exactly what He was doing when He
commanded His disciples to go out into the world and preach REPENTANCE and
remission of sins in His name. Elohim gives grace to the humble.
Repentance is the act of a humbled man. Through humility we become
vulnerable to Elohim, allowing Him access to our walled hearts. In that
instant of vulnerability, He shines "the light
of the knowledge of the glory of Elohim in the face of Yahushua Messiah"
and we are born of His Spirit. The light of that knowledge permeates our
"issues" and reveals the love and goodness of IAUE in such a way as
to begin to melt the mortar of the brick walls of our hearts.
2 Corinthians 4:7 But
we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may
be of Elohim, and not of us.
The plan of Elohim is that His very life and nature
be revealed in our lives just as it was in the life of His only-begotten son,
Yahushua. If you will recall, Yahushua said that He came to do the
will of His Father which was in Heaven. He also said that He does always
the things that please His Father.
We have already observed the process of how the Word
of Elohim becomes flesh in our lives. He reveals Himself to our newborn
spirit, whether by revelation of truth in the scriptures or His spoken word or
dreams or visions...and our conscience perceives it. The conscience then communicates
it to our understanding where our mind becomes aware of what has been given to
us within our spirit. The mind consents to the revelation, that it is
good and worthy, and the will of man yields
to the will of Elohim, letting that truth be expressed in our words and
actions. As we renew our minds to consent to the will of Elohim
that it is good and acceptable and perfect in all things, this process
eventually becomes automatic; such that when He reveals something to our
spirit, our bodies react. Yes, this
really is a possibility.
This is truly an amazing privilege that the Messiah
brings to every man who bows to His Mastery. It is such a glory in the
earth that it is evident "that the excellency
of the power" is unquestionably "of
Elohim, and not of us."
But, alas, there are those...issues. We have
patterns of behavior that have been developed through the years. We have
walls that we did not address in our conscious minds when we gave our lives to
Yahushua. You can readily recognize them in others. You may know
what they are in you. In absolutely every instance, we began to build
those walls in our hearts because (listen to this carefully) we resisted the
grace of Elohim and reacted sinfully to the events, experiences or
circumstances that were the catalysts to our wall-building.
"But, we have this
treasure in earthen vessels."
Look at the following verses. We will see Paul explain how a kingdom
heart reacts to those kinds of formulative experiences of life.
2
Corinthians 4:8 We are troubled on every side, yet not
distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
9 Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;
When trouble approached on every side; Paul did not
react in distress. When he was perplexed or confused with the circumstances of his life,
Paul did not despair. When he was persecuted, Paul did not feel like he had been forsaken by
Elohim and man. When he was cast down, belittled, ridiculed, insulted, accused, etc.,
Paul did not let that destroy him.
Note that in each category of hardship and
suffering, Paul did not find it an occasion to blame Elohim; thus his
conscience always remained clean and pure before Him. And because He did
not blame Elohim or question the wisdom or goodness of His purposes or motives;
Paul had no call to react negatively to his oppressors or toward the hurtful
experiences. This enabled Paul to keep the understanding of his heart
clean and pure.
What was his secret? It is revealed in the
next verse.
2
Corinthians 4:10 Always bearing about in the body the
dying of the Master Yahushua, that the life also of Yahushua might be made
manifest in our body.
Paul took up his stake daily and followed
Yahushua. He identified with the impaled Son of IAUE in his reproach and
shame and agreed and consented with the justice of Elohim in condemning sin in
the flesh. This released Paul from trusting in his own will and human
wisdom and intellect, thrusting him into a devoted dependency upon the will of
his Master. This daily stake-bearing kept Paul's heart humble and
protected him against pride. It made him a recipient of the grace of
Elohim (which is the power that Elohim gives to do His will). In other
words, it facilitated the process..."that the
life also of Yahushua might be made manifest" in his body. This is one of the secrets of discipleship:
to learn to recognize the utter unreliability and untrustworthiness of our own
will, even in the smallest of decisions; and to learn to completely trust in
the reliability and goodness of the will of IAUE.
Kingdom heart: a heart that offers no resistance to the performance
of the will of IAUE.
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