Rabbi Schneider - Discerning Reality
God is not some place. Often times people conceive of God, they conceive that He's some place, that He's in heaven. But God does not live, beloved, in a place. It's true that there is a place called heaven. Don't misunderstand. But God exists, Elohim the Creator exists outside of time and outside of space. God fills time and space, but He exists outside of time and space. God is not some place; He is the place. The Bible says all creation is upheld by His presence and by His power. In Acts 17, In Him we live and move and have our being. God is not someplace. He exists outside of time and outside of space, although He fills time and He fills space.
So we don't have to go someplace to get to God. He is right here. A deeper question to ask is even this: who is right here? Who is right here? God is omnipresent. He's everywhere. Consider this side note. Those that try to explain the origin of life by the Big Bang, and I have no problem personally with the Big Bang. I mean, I have no problem God said, "Let there be light," boom, there was light. I don't have a problem God said, "Let there be vegetation," boom, the vegetation started. I don't have a problem with God's speaking and a Big Bang happened. We, that have faith in a Creator, that have faith in an intelligent designer. We recognize if there was a Big Bang, it's because God made the Big Bang.
But those people that try to explain the origin of life simply by the Big Bang, I have a question for them. Where did the Big Bang happen? If there was a big bang, where did it happen? Many people when they think of a big bang, they think of all there's a Big Bang and outer space. But the question is, "Where did outer space come from"? Space is a creation. Time is a creation. Only God is. When He appeared to Moses at the burning bush, Moses said, "Who are you? Who should I say sent me"? And the Lord said to Moses, "I Am. That I Am has sent you".
God is not in a place, He is the place. He is the ground of all being. He is the first cause of all things yet He Himself has no cause. He's the one that is, that was, and that is to come. He is the ground of all being. And He is, if you can receive it, He is the Beer. He's alive. He's action. He's continuous. He is the Beer. He is the ground of all being. He's always been. He's is right now. He's being right now and I'll always be in the future. He is the Beer. In fact, when God revealed to Moses His personal covenant name composed of the four Hebrew letters, Yud Hei Vav Hei, oftentimes pronounced a breathy Yahweh, the tents of God's sacred name Yud Hei Vav Hei carries with it the idea of continuous, unfinished action. He's alive. God is alive. He's here. He's now. He's not in a place, beloved ones, but rather, He is the place. He is reality. And in order for you and I to live out of His reality, we need to learn how to live by the Spirit, His uncreated spirit.
Remember, Jesus met the woman at the well in John 4, and Jesus said to the woman, "Woman, give me a drink". And she said, "Why do you being a Jew ask me a Samaritan for a drink"? And Yeshua said, "If you knew who it was, that was asking you for a drink, you'd ask them any give you living water so that you thirst no more". And she said to Him, "Give me that water". Jesus said, "Everyone that drinks of Me, that receives Me, the spirit will become within Him a well of living water, an eternal well of living water, of eternal life that will spring up in that person's soul and water them so that they'll thirst no more". You see, you and I, all of humankind, if we really try to analyze what we are as human beings, what makes up our makeup as human creations, one of the characteristics of humanity is desire. We come into this world from our mother's room crying. Why do we cry? We want something. We want human touch as an infant. We want our mother's milk as an infant. We want to feel comforted as an infant.
Notice all these illustrations are desires. We desire intimacy with our mother, we desire to feel her skin on our body. We desire our mother's milk. And then we get a little older and we begin to... we desire toys, we desire all kinds of things. We want to touch everything as little toddlers. It's a constant desire exploring the world. We desire this, we desire that. I love my little granddaughter. The person she wants to hold her is the person that's not holding her. She'll put out her arms to you, focus on you, and then you'll take her. And as soon as you take her, then she sees somebody else, she reaches out her arms to them. We desire. And then we get older in life, we go to school, we desire friends, we desire friendship. People that desire to be popular. Then we begin to desire material things. We desire certain clothing. We desire to live in a certain neighborhood. We desire a certain job.
Then we get older, we desire a partner in life, a husband or a wife, we desire intimacy, we desire to eat. You could say that one of the primary banners over humanity is the word "desire". And because we desire so deeply, we go about our lives trying to fulfill our desires, whether it's the very, very primitive desires of food and intimacy and clothing, or as people are through those stages, then they desire things like security and power and prestige and material wealth. But the thing that motivates mankind, one of the primary things that motivates mankind is they have this deep desire inside. The problem is, for us, when we try to fulfill this inner longing, this deep desire, the sense of something in us that is longing to be fulfilled, the problem for humanity, for you and I, is that we try to fulfill that deep desire with the things of the world.
So we know that so many are caught up in a treadmill of life, like a hamster on a wheel, getting up in the morning, eating, running to work, coming back home, falling asleep, getting up... Why? They're trying to get ahead in life. They're trying to get a promotion. They're trying to get a bigger job. What they find is nothing that they obtain ever satisfies them. That's why you ask somebody that has so much money how much money is enough, they say, one more dollar. The things of the world can never really satisfy desire. The key for you and I today, as we're looking at mysteries revealed, revelation that sets us free, is to recognize we can never be satisfied and our thirst will never be quenched if we try to lead our lives from the outside in rather than from the inside out. Think about what I'm saying. We're born into this world with great desire. It stays with us our whole life.
The problem is when we think that we can fulfill this deep longing inside, this deep desire by obtaining the things of the world, no matter how much food we eat, we'll never be completely satisfied in the innermost part of our soul because food can't satisfy. Sex can never totally satisfy the deepest longing of the human soul. A bigger house, a bigger car, all these things are part of life, but they never fully satisfied the deepest desire of the human soul. Because the deepest desire the human soul can only be satisfied from the inside out. And this is what Jesus meant, beloved one, when He said to the woman at the well in John 4, "I have water to give you that if you drink it you'll thirst no more".
So the question we want to pose today is this: how do we learn to live life from the inside out rather than trying to always fill ourselves with things from the outside? The first thing we have to do is become aware. We have to be aware whether we're thinking thoughts that are living life from the outside or whether we're thinking thoughts that are from the inside. You see, the thing that makes you and I differ from the rest of God's creation is you and I have self-awareness. We can actually be thinking about what we're thinking about. You see, when elephants think they don't have the capacity to analyze what they're thinking about. They're not aware of what they're thinking about. There's something in their head, whether it's eating or whatever and they're just moving towards that thought in their head. But you and I, we have the ability to actually be conscious of the thoughts that are in our mind. And then to discern whether they're right thoughts or wrong thoughts and then to make correction.
So first of all, we have to become aware, are we living life from the outside in or the inside out? Here's an example. If you're constantly reaching for your smartphone, because you think somehow somebody texted you, somebody emailed you or you got to catch up on the Facebook account, if you're addicted to that cell phone, that smartphone, are you living life from the outside in when you do that or are you living life from the inside out? I believe this is the hugest, most satanic deception and addiction on planet Earth right now. In fact, did you know that the personal computers that began to be sold in mass, in other words, the company that's known for making their computer, the personal computer the possession of every man, it came out and sold initially for $666? This is a fact. I'm not going to give you any more specifics. It's a fact. Just go online and search for personal computer $666, you'll get all the information. I don't believe that was an accident. I believe the devil is using technology and through technology is causing addiction because people are trying to satisfy their desire through the communication that takes place through technology. And through that addiction, the devil is luring people deeper and deeper and deeper into darkness.
We all struggle with it. I try to discipline myself as much as possible with my phone, you know, my smartphone. I'm not on the computer much at all. But I have to struggle with it every day. I'm someone that disciplines myself. I checked my emails and other social media twice a day. But even with that discipline, I had a dream just last night. I was awoken from my sleep in the middle of the night, went to the restroom, went back to bed. When I went back to bed, it seemed like this dream was laying on me for hours and it was that I couldn't find my smartphone. And there was this tremendous burden in my soul, this tremendous addiction in my soul to the smartphone. I couldn't find it and it was laying so heavily on me. This is what humanity is struggling with. I venture to say that many of you under the sound of my voice are struggling with it right now.
Until we break that addiction we will not be living life the way we should from the inside out. Because if we think that going online and going to somebody's Facebook account or posting something on our own Facebook account is going to satisfy you, if we think it's going to satisfy us, we are sorely deceived. Let me ask you this. After you're done on Facebook for an hour, how much better do you feel? I'm not saying that we can't use these tools to communicate with people when we master them rather than allowing them to master us. But the huge problem for so many, so, so, so many, it's not that they're using the different social technologies as a tool to communicate with their friends. It's rather that these technologies and these social media platforms have mastered humankind. And when you get pulled out of yourself so that you go to a restaurant, and rather than talking to the person in front of you, rather than talking to the other people at the table, everybody at the table, you and the person next to you, the others at the table, they're all looking at their smartphones, texting people, emailing people on their Facebook accounts.
Let me ask you, is not something wrong with that? The devil is luring people out of their own souls into a counterfeit reality through social media. And if you think about some of the social media and the way that people portray themselves, is it really real, or is it just a front? When someone, for example... I'm venturing to just ask a question now. When people create a Facebook account, do you ever see someone posting a picture on their Facebook account of what they look like when they first get out of bed in the morning before they comb their hair and got, you know... No. No one ever shows that side of themselves to the world. They don't show who they really are. Most people they communicate to the world the image that they want people to see. It's not the real image. It's not who they really are on the inside. It's who they want people to see themselves as. They're living life from the outside. They're projecting something into the world that's counterfeit.
And then the world looks at these pictures and then they start thinking, "Well, I'm not as pretty. I'm not as beautiful. I'm not as good a shape. My life's not as good as their life is because look, they're having such a good time. Look at all these pictures they just posted of their vacation. Look at the happy relationship they have. Look at these pictures they have with their husband or their wife. They look so happy". It's just a facade. It's just a facade of deception. It's living life from the outside rather than living life, beloved ones, from the inside out. Somebody once was on vacation, I said, "How was the vacation"? They said, "Well, at least the picture said it was a great vacation".
I mean, they didn't really know how the vacation was because they were so focused on taking pictures and then projecting those pictures to the world. They weren't focusing on just enjoying the vacation themselves. They were focused on taking pictures of the vacation, so they could post it on their social media sites to portray how the vacation was. Beloved, humanity is in a very sad and sorry place. I want to teach you, by the grace of God, things that I am taking into my own life, strategies that I'm employing in my own life to train me and discipline me to live life from the inside out rather than from the outside. And I'm going to teach you these strategies on next week's broadcast. This is one of the most important messages that you will hear during this generation, beloved, learning how to lead life from the inside out. If you don't get this right, you are going to be taken captive by the enemy.