Rabbi Schneider - Making It Through Life's Circumstances
I've got this small room in my home that I call my war room. I've got a couch in there and then I've got a big wooden eagle on a table and I'll oftentimes go and sit on the couch in my war room and just open my heart and thoughts up to the Lord. Recently, as I was sitting before Him, I felt the Lord speaking to me, not audibly, but just divine intuition, intuitively, I felt the Lord was saying to me, you see all the different pieces of furniture in a room, wherever it might be. There weren't many pieces of furniture in this small war room. But in general, if you're sitting in a room, the Lord was telling me and you look around, you see all the different pieces of furniture in that room, maybe a table, maybe chairs, whatever they are.
The Lord said, those pieces of furniture are just like circumstances in your life. In other words, when you're sitting in a room and you see the furniture all around you, the furniture really doesn't affect you that much. I mean, it's nice to look at if you've got nice furniture and if there's furniture that is in the room, you want to replace, it might not be so nice, but it doesn't really mean that much. It's not really controlling your heart. And the Lord said to me, that's the way you should view the circumstances of your life in the same way that you relate to furniture, that it holds little power over you.
So too, you should understand, I felt Father was saying to me, that the circumstances in your life, they should have no power over you they are just fleeting. There is temporary and unreal in terms of everlasting life as furniture in a room. The Lord was telling me the place that you want to focus on is in your interior being, the things that are on the outside, they're passing away, they mean nothing. They're like furniture, but your soul what's going on in the interior life. That's, what's important. That's what you have to build your life on. You have to withdraw your focus and your energy from the outer life, from the circumstances and instead come within where the kingdom of God is. Beloved it's so important that we begin to perceive the mystery that Jesus spoke of when He said "the kingdom of God is within you". He also said, "don't go looking here, there, when somebody says, lo the kingdom of God's there lo the kingdom of God's there". He said, "no, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of heaven is within you".
Now Jesus, thinking about what I just said in Matthew 6, taught us to pray to the Father, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven". And we've all prayed that prayer. And oftentimes when we pray that prayer, that the kingdom of God would come on earth as it is in heaven, we immediately once again think of circumstances. But remember the kingdom of God is first of all, a mystery that has to be ascertained from within. This is why Paul said, "I pray that your eyes would be opened", Paul said, "that you'd understand the mystery of Christ in you, the hope of glory".
So I want you to think about what I just shared as it relates to our hearts, truly open to the Lord in such a way that he can envelop us and one of the ways that we can measure that is if we're honoring the Lord appropriately with our finances. You see Yeshua, He did, whether we like hearing about it or not. He talked a lot about finances and a lot about money. Why did He do that? Many people have taken advantage of His sayings, but the truth is the facts are Jesus, talked a lot about finances. He said, "you can't serve both God and mammon", which is money. The reason He talks so much about it, beloved one, is because He knew that as human beings trapped in this existence of ours and humanity, flesh, and blood, we would mistake placing our confidence in physical resources like money, rather than having our confidence in HaShem, in God. I want to encourage you release your faith to God, trust in Him, put Him first. Let's honor Him with our finances because Jesus said, "if we would seek first, the kingdom of God, everything else will be added unto us". Let's honor Him with our finances.