Rabbi Schneider - Train Yourself to Walk with God
I'm sharing with you keys in the Word of God that can put you on a trajectory to come into unity with God. We began weeks ago talking about how Enoch in the book of Genesis chapter 5 verse 24 walked with God in such a way that God literally took him off the earth and he was no more. You see we're not describing religion, we're describing what I like to call a scientific reality in the Spirit, that we can come into such supernatural unity with God that we achieve true victory in the world, that we become master of our lives. I'm saying this beloved ones, that it is possible to overcome in the spirit by walking in unity with God. And the keys that I'm sharing with you once again, they sound so simple, but the truth is unless we practice them we're gonna miss it. Now in the previous broadcast I began by talking about if we're gonna walk with God and experience unity and victory, it needs to begin with recognizing or acknowledging the Creator in our lives.
Now you think you understand that, but let me tell ya, it's so much deeper than what we think we understand. I encourage you to go back and get the first teaching. What does it mean to really acknowledge the Creator? It's not just saying, "I believe in God". There's so much more practical application that must be out working in our lives if we're truly gonna walk in a way that's acknowledging the Creator. And unless we're acknowledging the Creator in our lives practically. Not just saying, "I believe in God," but in the way that we walk during the hours of our day every day of our lives. Until we come to the place where we're acknowledging our Creator, so that we become aware of the fact that every breath we take is a gift from Him; Until we come into that consciousness of that reality, we're not gonna be living, beloved, in the victory that God has made possible for us.
And then we proceeded from there to talking about the next key. In order to walk with God and come into unity with Him we need, listen now beloved ones, listen, to understand His presence. There's so many things that the Spirit is communicating to us through our circumstances, through our dreams at night, through things that people say to us, through divine intuition that's in our conscience and in our heart. So many ways that the Spirit is speaking to us, but too often times many of us are missing it. Until we learn to understand His presence and recognize His voice, beloved, until we come to the place where we're hitting the pocket, when we're in the zone, when we truly have ears to hear. Until we come to that place where we understand His presence and have learned to recognize His voice, we're not gonna be able to walk with God, with Hashem the Creator, in the type of victory that He has made possible for us.
And then last week, I talked about the fact that we can walk with God and come into unity with Him, listen now, by clothing our self in His nature. And I talked a lot about the fact that we have to restrict, control, the desires of the flesh and put focus on taking on the nature and characteristics of God's Spirit. Now this might sound like old truth, but beloved, has to be new truth. The reality is that if we're gonna clothe our self with His nature, with His likeness, we have to put tremendous focus on doing so, because we have resistance. Every day we have resistance from the world, the flesh, and the devil. And unless we have kavanah, which is the Hebrew word for focus, that every day we're living with purpose of taking on His nature, clothing our self with humility, clothing our self with gentleness, clothing our self with love, clothing our self with sensitivity, clothing our self with rising up in power to speak that which gives life rather than criticizing.
Unless we're doing that with kavanah and purpose every single day, we're not gonna be able to walk in extreme victory with God. I spoke about the Law of Similarity and Dissimilarity, that the more that we become like Jesus the more we're gonna know God. This is what Jesus prayed for in the Gospel of John. Hear God's Word. The grass withers and the flowers fade, but the Word of God abides forever. Jesus said this, "I did not ask on behalf of these alone, but for those who also believe in Me through their word that they may all be one". Here we go now, "Even as you Father are in Me and I in You, that they also may be," listen now, "In us".
You see Hashem, which is the Hebrew way of saying the Creator. It's God's name, the name. Until we understand that it's gonna take effort on our part in order to become one in Him, even as Jesus and the Father are one. Until we understand that we have to be in a battle every day, that we have to be engaged in warfare, until we understand this and fight the fight of faith, beloved, we're gonna be living from failure to failure. So listen to me once again, the more we restrict the flesh, we hold back our anger, we don't release it. We hold our frustration, we don't speak out of it. We hold back speaking words of criticism and accusation. We have to hold it back. It takes strength. It takes confidence. It takes purpose and kavanah. Until we restrict the nature of the flesh and instead willfully choose to speak a word of love, willfully choose to speak that which gives life, willfully choose that which brings peace and unity; unless we're doing that, restricting the flesh and putting on the nature of the Spirit, we won't be able to walk with God.
So let me ask you, how many times have you found yourself gossiping about people? That will break your fellowship with God. You won't be able to walk with Him. How many times have you found yourself speaking words of criticism? It will break your fellowship with God. This is critical. It's simple, but profound truth. If you will engage in warfare, restrict your flesh and choose the Spirit, you're gonna enter in, beloved, to a walk with God that's beyond anything that you've ever known before. There's always more. You might say, "I'm already walking with God". But let me say to you, you may be walking with God, but your path can go higher. The more we restrict the flesh and take on the clothing of the Spirit, the more similar we become in Jesus to His own nature and the more we're gonna experience Hashem in our life.
And then I talked also last week about the fact that we can walk with God when we, listen now, internalize His love. We need to, listen, internalize His love. We can say, "I believe God loves me". We can quote John 3:16, "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life". We can talk about the love of God. We can send people Christian greeting cards that talk about the love of God. We can even sing, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so". And yet even after doing all those things we may not have internalized the fact that the Creator really loves us. You feel shame, some of us. You feel guilt, some of you. And that shame, that guilt is creating a block, so that you're not internalizing the Creator's love for you. You need to understand, Jesus died on the cross for you. He shed His blood to take away the guilt, to take away the shame, to cleanse you of an evil conscience. God wants you to know now that, that sin has been removed.
How much He loves you. Listen to me. I've shared this in other series, I need to share it again. Why did God create you and I? Why does the book of Bereshit, or Genesis say to us that God the Creator made man in His own image. He created us in His own likeness? Why did He create us in His likeness? I mean why did He create a human being that shared in His likeness? It's because, beloved, He wanted to create a vessel that He could fill with Himself. He created us in His own image, listen, so that He could share Himself with us. He created you and I to be vessels, perfect vessels that could receive Him. You see God is so overflowing with His goodness. He's so overflowing with love, with kindness, with victory, with splendor, with strength, with power. God is so overflowing with victory, everything good. He wants other people to experience it. He wants to share Himself with others.
He said to Abraham, "Abraham, I am your exceedingly great reward". God created you and I in His likeness to share Himself with us, so that we could experience reality as He experiences reality. This is what heavens about. It's about experiencing His reality. God wants you to share in His reality, but in order for you and I to share in His reality we have to become convinced that He truly loves us. Listen, Jesus took the sin out of the way. He took the guilt out of the way. He took the condemnation out of the way. There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus. There's nothing in the way. All that has to happen is for you and I to open up our hearts and realize Father's favor is upon us. He's not angry with us. Our sin is not in the way. He loves us.
Let me tell you, God loved you during your worst days and His love never failed you. He'll never love you more than He does right now. You have to become convinced of His unconditional love for you. Father loves you. Beloved, we need to internalize His love for us if we're gonna walk with Him. He wants you to feel good. He wants you to feel pleasure. He wants you to be happy. Think about it, when you ate your last meal, hopefully it was a half way decent meal, didn't you get enjoyment out of tasting the food? I just had for lunch, matzo ball soup. A favorite meal for Jewish boys. My wife made me matzo ball soup with two matzo balls. Oh it tasted so good. She put a little salt in it, a little pepper in it. I love feeling the texture of the matzo balls in my mouth. It was so good. It warmed my stomach as it went down into it. Why would Hashem, why would the Creator have given me the ability to experience such pleasure as I did when I ate that matzo ball soup, if He didn't design us and make me to experience pleasure?
You see the Bible says He's the God of pleasure. God wants you to feel good. He wants to make you happy. He wants to lift you up. He wants you to be in victory. He loves you and you and I need to open our heart to that and believe it, internalize Hashem's love for us. And finally beloved, to be able to walk with God, listen now, we have to understand our purpose. If we're gonna truly live life in such a way that our life counts, that we're going somewhere, that we're ascending upwards, that we enter into unity and victory. If we're gonna accomplish that we have to understand our purpose. Beloved, we are here, listen now, as I've been sharing, to come into unity with our Creator. It doesn't matter if you live in Africa, Haiti, the US, or Jerusalem, your purpose is the same. Your purpose is to become transformed into His likeness and to come into unity with Him.
Let me say it again, it doesn't matter if you're unemployed, if you're a doctor, if you're a hairstylist, if you're a policeman, if you clean houses, if you're an accountant, if you're a brick layer. It doesn't matter what your occupation is. It doesn't matter where you live. The road may be different, but the journey is the same and the end is the same. The purpose is to come into unity with our Creator. The reason that we're here, beloved, is to choose to put God first, to apply these key spiritual principles that I'm teaching you, every single second, of every single day. We may be taking different roads. We may be coming from different parts of the world. We may have different occupations. Some are old, some are young, some are single, some are married, we are on different roads beloved, but we all have the same destination, to come into unity with Hashem, to come into unity with Father God through the love of His Son King Jesus.
Beloved, the things that I've explained and described in this series, don't take them lightly. These are simple, but profound heavy truths. They may be simple, but the simplest truths are often times and usually the most weighty. I encourage you to go back, review this entire series; Take notes, outline it, look at the principles once again, to recognize God, to acknowledge Him. What does that mean? Number two, to understand His presence. Number three, to internalize His love. And number four, to understand His purpose. Get the series, take notes, meditate, pray about these things and if you will put them in front of you, beloved, do it for a year. I mean do it for the rest of your life, but make a commitment that you're gonna review these principles every single day for a year. By that time they'll become second nature. I promise you, you will become more empowered supernaturally by Hashem's Spirit, then you've ever been before.
Listen, God loves you more than you and I can ever know. He loves us so much. He is infinite, how broad and deep and wide is the love of the Creator for us. He made us for Himself. He has compassion on us and He wants us to experience His joy and His reality. This is not about religion, this is about reality. It's scientific, spiritual truth. Apply these principles to your life. I promise you beloved one, you'll be blessed and God's joy will be your portion.