Rabbi Schneider - Practice Hearing God
We're continuing a series today that I'm entitling, Simple, but Profound Truth. I began this series last week and I opened up with the scripture from the book of Bereshit, which is the Hebrew word for Genesis or beginnings. And I quoted there from the 5th chapter, where it says that, "Enoch walked with God". And then a very mysterious sentence that says, "And he was no more, for God took him". Most commentators understand that verse as being that Enoch was walking in such unity with the Creator, that God simply lifted him off the earth and took him. Powerful, powerful, powerful. And I love scriptures like this, because it puts in front of me the supernatural possibility of victory that you and I can gain through our walk with God.
You see Jesus said, "All things are possible to those that believe". We're not talking today about religion, beloved. We're talking about reality. We're talking about supernatural reality. We're talking about the fact that the same Jesus that walked on earth, that healed the sick, raised the dead, cast out demons. This same Jesus, beloved ones, is at work in our life today and you can achieve in your spiritual journey with God, so much more than you understand right now, if you'll put God first in your life. And with all your kavanah, which is the Hebrew word for focus, with all your kanavah, with all your focus, aim all your actions and energy towards Him; obeying Him, walking with Him, putting Him first.
There is no limit to what we can enter in to, if we will truly develop the spiritual power to put God first in all ways, all the time and to fulfill the most famous declaration in the Hebrew Bible to the Jewish people, which is called the Shema; "Hear, O Lord: The Lord our God, the Lord is one," to truly make it all about this one. Now last time I began to develop this series, Simple, but Profound Truth, by giving the first key as to how we can walk with God, how we can be like Enoch and be one that the Lord would say at the end of our life, "You walked with Me".
And the key that I gave last week, I want you to write these down and I encourage you, if you didn't get last week's episode, be sure and listen to it, be sure and watch it. I'm not just spilling out words beloved, the words that I'm giving you are filled with revelation and power and will change your life if you'll truly receive them. God created the heavens and earth by His word. His word is living and active. It's sharper than a two edged sword and the word that I'm giving you today and last week, it's a sword that will truly circumcise your heart, set you apart unto God, so that you can walk with your Creator. How do we walk with our Creator like Enoch? Number one, we acknowledge God in everything. First of all we acknowledge, beloved ones, that our very life is a gift. Every breath we take is a gift from our Creator. We have to recognize that. We have to recognize our life is a gift. If someone asks you how you're doing, one of the things that should be on your heart in order to convey how you're doing is this, "You know what? I'm doing better than I deserve".
Every single one of us is doing better than we deserve. We don't even deserve to be here. There's nothing that we did that warranted our coming into being. Our existence, beloved, each one of us individually, it's a gift from our Creator. God gave us the gift of life. God gave of us the gift of being conscious. God gave us the gift of today. As I said last time, your life might be hard right now, but you know what? That might be exactly what you or I need right now. If you're going through a difficult circumstance, that may be exactly what is needed in your life for spiritual correction, because the Bible says that Father god disciplines every child that He receives. So possibly what you're going through right now, that's exactly what you need, it's the best thing that could possibly be happening to you. It might be hard. It might be painful, but it's exactly what you need.
Don't try to understand your life, just by looking at the moment. You've got to see the big picture. God's got a purpose for you. He's got an eternal destiny for you and I. And like the Shulamite bride in the Song of Songs that said, "Let the north winds blow and let the south winds blow and open up my heart to you, that you can come and live inside me. And that you'll be able to give forth your fragrance through my life". So too, beloved children of God, you and I need both the north winds that represent cold winds, that make us cold and it's hard to go through the north winds. And we need the south winds, those winds that refresh us and feel good. We need the combination of both in order to fully blossom. The point is, we need to recognize God in everything. We need to recognize that our life is a gift and we need to thank Him for everything that's happening in our life right now.
If you'll practice recognizing from the time that you get out of bed in the morning, the Lordship of God over the earth and over your life and if you'll give Him thanks for everything, believing it's all for the best. Because the Bible says, "Give thanks to God in everything, for this is His will for you in Christ Jesus". If you'll believe that He's truly Lord. If you'll recognize that your life is a gift, if you'll be grateful and have gratitude for the gift and if you'll thank Him for everything, through the good and the bad, you'll be well on your way to developing a supernatural platform that you can ascend up into the spirit of Yeshua, to walk with your Creator, to walk with God. I talked about that last week.
So we're gonna move on today. I'm gonna give you the second key, beloved ones, to walking with God. You can walk with God, beloved church, by understanding, listen now, His presence in your life. You can't take for granted that you understand His presence. Jesus said to the religious leaders of His day, "You know you guys, you could recognize the signs in the sky about when it's gonna rain, but you don't understand or recognize the signs of the spirit". All of us need to grow, listen, in the understanding of God's presence in our life. Many of us go through things and as we're moving through things God is knocking at the door of our heart. He is trying to speak to us, but because we don't recognize His presence, because we're not aware of His presence, because we don't understand His presence, we miss the message. We miss his communication.
You see, God sent His Son into the world, who is called, listen now, the Word. Listen now, I'm saying we need to understand His presence and when we think about understanding His presence, one of the key concepts connected to that is, listen now, that God is always, listen, speaking to us. That's why His Son is called the Word. What does the word do? The word, listen, communicates. If you want to communicate to somebody you speak to them, listen, with words. It's the same reason, beloved church, that in Acts chapter 2, when the Ruach Hakodesh, which is the Hebrew way to say the Holy Spirit; When the Ruach Hakodesh fell on those first believers, how did He manifest Himself? He manifested Himself as a tongue, listen, a tongue of fire. Why did He manifest Himself as a tongue? I mean He could have manifested Himself as a dove there. He could have manifested Himself as a rainbow.
Ezekiel saw a rainbow around the presence of the Lord. But He manifested Himself there initially, listen now, as a tongue. Why would it be a tongue? We have to ask ourselves that question. We just can't say, "Oh He manifested Himself as a tongue of fire" and move on. We've got to stop for a second and dig deep. Why a tongue? Why not a horse? You know the prophet of old saw all these angels manifested you know with horses and chariots. Why not in some other form? Why did He manifest Himself as a tongue? Why didn't He manifest Himself as water? We know the spirit is like water. There's a purpose for everything God does. The reason, church, that He manifested Himself to those first believers as a tongue of fire, is because listen, a tongue is a speaking oracle. You use the tongue to speak. Without the tongue you can't speak. And the Holy Spirit has been given to the church in order to communicate to us, to impart to us, to speak in to us, listen now, the things of God.
We need to understand His presence, because listen, He's always, get it, speaking to us. He's the word. He's a tongue. He speaks to us. He speaks to us through divine intuition. He speaks to us through dreams. He speaks to us in circumstances. He can speak to us through His creation. He can speak to us through other people. But so many times, listen, we miss it, because we don't understand His presence. I want you to hear me. As you're walking through out the day, be looking for God to speak to you in your circumstances. He's often trying to interrupt us or direct us through our circumstances. Pay attention, don't be dumb and blind to the working of the Holy Spirit. And I'm not wanting to insult you, but many of us, we're not awake. Look at what God might be saying to you in the circumstances and be sensitive to His presence. Don't be stiff necked, but obey Him. In other words, if you're feeling a check in your spirit about doing something or saying something, don't be stiff necked. Obey Him, stop and don't do it.
So many people are suffering needlessly. God is speaking to them, telling them not to make that financial purchase, telling them not to marry that person, telling them not to eat that food, telling them whatever, so many different things. And yet they don't pay attention, because they're stiff necked, they're stubborn, they're in the flesh. They go ahead and they do those things and what happens? They end up suffering pain, because they weren't able to understand and recognize God's presence in their life. I encourage you to pay very close attention to your dreams at night, because the Father often speaks to us in our dreams. We read in the book of Job for example, that God speaks once, yea twice, when man is fast asleep in his bed. God is trying to open our minds and our hearts to give us instruction.
As we study the pages of scripture, so many times God gave direction to His loved ones while they were sleeping in their bed at night. Think about Joseph, how did Joseph, Jesus' father, know how to take Yeshua into Egypt so that Herod wouldn't kill him? The way he knew that, beloved one, is because Father spoke to him in a dream and said, "Take your son, Jesus, into Egypt". And Joseph obeyed. How did Joseph know when it was time to take Jesus out of Egypt back to Israel? Once again, the Lord spoke to him in a dream. How did the patriarch Jacob gain the revelation to have courage that God was with him? It happened to him, beloved, in his sleep. He laid his head down on a rock and while he slept on the rock he saw a ladder that extended from the rock that his head was on to heaven. He saw angels ascending up and down the ladder and he woke up and he said, "Surely God is in this place". He understood that the ladder where his head lay on that rock extended all the way up to heaven and when he saw the angels of God extending up and down the ladder, he recognized God's with him here on earth.
How did he get that revelation beloved ones? In his sleep. I want you to know God has saved me from so many wrong decisions through dreams at night. And He's directed me and prepared me for so many things through dreams at night, but I'm paying attention. I could miss it. If I chose to wake up in the morning and not ask myself, "Did I dream anything last night? Did God say anything to me last night? Did the Spirit give me any message last night"? If I woke up without asking myself those questions I would miss so much of what I've received. Listen beloved one, you're not a robot. You're not a robot. God's not gonna force you. He's not gonna force His Holy Spirit on you. He wants you to respond. He's looking for a lover. He's looking for you and I church, to love Him back. He's looking for a partner in love.
So when He speaks to us He's not usually gonna cram it down our throat and put us on our back and put His fist in our face and say, "You must receive this". No, He's gonna reveal Himself to us in love and then He's gonna give us the choice, beloved, to listen and respond. "Hear, O Israel". Hear, right? You got to listen. "Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one". And that word for hear, shema is, we have to hear and we have to obey. We have to listen, we have to be sensitive to His presence. We have to recognize His presence. Other people sometimes speak things into our life. We may not like what they have to say, but we have to ask ourselves, "God is there something in this for me? I don't like what this person said". Maybe they even said it with a bad motive. Maybe they had an evil spirit or a bad attitude towards you, but you know what? Was there any truth in what they said? Was there any correction that I need to take to heart in what they said?
Some people have so much pride, they just close their heart, they won't listen. But for those of us that know Hashem, for those of us that know our Creator, we need to pay attention to our circumstances. We need to listen to what people are saying and filter it and ask Father, "Is there something in this for me"? Beloved child of God, you and I can walk with God like Enoch. First of all, we need to acknowledge our Creator, that our life is a gift and that He's master of the universe. And then we need to recognize His presence in our life by having a spiritual sensitivity. I've got more for you. Stay tuned for next episode, for this very important series. God bless you and shalom.