Rabbi Schneider - How God Restores Relationships
The prayers that we're focusing on beloved ones, are the same prayers that the apostles prayed for us two thousand years ago. And these prayers that they prayed contain eternal truths that will never change. In other words, the prayers that the apostles pray, today we're gonna begin by looking in the book of Philippians. The prayers that they prayed for us reflect God's heart for His children, for all ages to come. And so as we focus on these same intentions in prayer that the apostles prayed, as we focus on these same intentions for our own lives we can be positive that change will take place and that we're gonna be transformed as we pray them ourselves.
You see the Lord said if we pray anything according to His will we can know that He hears us and that He's gonna answer us. And so there's some things we can pray about and we don't necessary have any guarantee that the Lord will answer those prayers. In other words, we have perhaps some wishes in our life and it's good to present all our desires to the Lord. But we can't be guaranteed for example, that the Lord will grant us every single wish, because He may have a different plan. But on the other hand, when we focus on these eternal realities, these eternal truths contained in apostolic prayer, we can be positive that the Lord is going to grant these requests.
In fact when I come to the Lord in prayer I always focus on the truths that are inherent in the apostolic prayers, because these are the most important things on God's heart for our lives. He desires change. More than anything else, He desires transformation. More than all, He desires that we become more like Jesus. And the nuggets of truth in the apostolic prayers, these are the things beloved, that will change us into the likeness of Jesus. So with that said, we're gonna begin today as we continue in the book of Philippians chapter number one, verses number nine through eleven.
Father God we ask You now to impart deep revelation to us, as we consider the prayers of the apostles and Father God how they pertain to our lives today. Father I pray that the words that I speak would cut deep. That You would lay within us eternal foundations. Father that You would give Your people ears to hear, that they would receive these golden nuggets in such a way that they would begin to pray these same things for their own lives, even for the rest of their time here on planet Earth, because I know Father God that praying these truths will change them.
Here we go, Philippians chapter one, beginning in verse number nine. Paul prayers this, he says, "And this I pray: that your love may abound still more". So I want to just stop right there. We're gonna continue on, but I want to take these prayers apart in different phases, different phrases that Paul prayers. The first thing he speaks of is that our love would abound. He said, "Still more". Now it's interesting that they already had love, because he said, "I pray that your love would abound," he said, "Still more". It's an awesome thing beloved one, for us to recognize that there's always more. Paul prays, "I pray that your love would abound," he said, "Still more".
Isn't it awesome to know that there's always more? There's more peace, there's more love, there's more understanding, there's more power, there's more of the anointing, there's always more and more and more to experience. In fact some of you have probably heard me teach this before, but in the book of Revelation, as well as in the book of Isaiah chapter six, we see the angels before the throne of God. And what we read there is these angels before God's throne keep crying out, day and night they go, "Kadosh, kadosh, kadosh," or "Holy, holy, holy". And the Bible says day and night they don't stop, these divine beings don't stop day and night, responding to new emanations and waves of God's glory. So that every time they are hit with a new wave of God's glory that's more than the last wave they just got hit with, it like takes their breath away so to speak and they have to cry out again, "Holy".
So when the scripture says that they don't cease crying out day and night, "Holy, holy, holy". Every time they do it, it's because they're responding to more. Every time they do it they're responding to another wave of God's presence and each wave that comes is more, because God, listen now, is inexhaustible. And that's what your life and my life is gonna be like for the rest of eternity. We're gonna be constantly experiencing the more of God. And so just to tie that in with Paul said, "I pray that your love," he said, "would abound". Verse number nine he said, "Still more and more". Listen to that again. "I pray that your love would abound still more and more".
And as we focus on this concept of our love abounding more and more, the older I get in the Lord, I came to faith in 1978. Many of you have been walking with the Lord for a number of years. Some of you are newer to the faith. But the older I get in my walk with Yeshua the more I realize that love really is the essence of everything. The Bible says everything else is gonna fade away, but faith, hope and love and love is the greatest of everything. The Bible says that love covers a multitude of sins. And so you know some days when we're young in the faith, we're so zealous you know? You know over every single doctrine you know? Fighting about which way to be baptized and this and that and the other and don't misunderstand me, all these things are important. Doctrine's important. Truth is important, but sometimes when we're younger believers we lack the love. We focus on the doctrine, but we lack the love. But the Bible says love covers a multitude of sin.
Now don't misunderstand me, this is never to take away from the fact that we must have sound doctrine, we must adhere to the doctrine that the apostles delivered once and for all, but the greatest is love. And so I want to ask you, would you just examine yourself for a second? Look at the way you're walking beloved ones, in your closest relationships. Are you dying to self in order to increase in love in those relationships that are closest to you? I mean we all know stories. Perhaps some of you were even raised in homes where your parents were really loving to everybody outside the home, but inside the home there was no love. Perhaps you had a mom, or dad that was really courteous to the neighbors and really courteous again to the community and people outside the house, but inside the house perhaps they were harsh to their spouse, or to the children.
But the way that we can first gauge how we're growing in love, is by asking ourselves how are we relating to the people that we're closest to, to our spouses, to our children, to our parents, to the people that we work with every day? The most important area beloved, to grow in God's spirit, the most important thing to focus on is to grow in love. And Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friends". And what we learn from that simple verse, "Greater love," Jesus said, "Has no man than this, that a man lays down his life for his friend". What we learn is, that love involves sacrifice, it involves a dying of our own will, it involves a dying of our flesh, it involves putting the needs of somebody else even beyond our own.
So once again we're in Philippians one, verse nine and Paul was praying for the church. He's praying for God's people and the first thing he prays is, "I pray that your love would abound still more and more". So let me ask you a question. When you look at your life is it true that your love is growing? Can you see that you're walking in greater love this year than you were last year? You weren't walking in greater love, are you walking in greater shalom, in greater peace? Are you, are you resisting the spirit of accusation? You know the enemy always wants to come to bring division. He always wants us to have an accusatory spirit towards the people that we're closest to.
In fact often times the enemy will target those relationships that are the most important. In other words the enemy will put thoughts in our mind of accusation towards the people that are actually the most important people in our lives in terms of God's kingdom, because the enemy wants to steal and kill and destroy. He wants us to be divided from the people that are the most strategic people in our lives for God's purpose. In other words, your important relationships are gonna be the relationships that the enemy is gonna most want to attack. And so we need to understand that we're in a battle and that what the enemy does not want is for us to love. I know in my life sometimes, sometimes there will be a season where the enemy will get me off track and my mind will begin to think thoughts that produce division, that don't produce love.
But the older I've got in the Lord I've begun to see, you know what? "The way my mind is working right now," I say to myself, "This is not God. This is not love". And I break agreement with it and I say, "Father God bring me back into agreement with the truth. Bring me back into agreement with Your spirit. Bring me back into agreement with love". But you know what beloved ones? Perhaps like some of you, in my earlier days I wasn't able to do that. When the enemy started putting wrong thinking patterns in my mind, because beloved this is how the enemy works, he puts thoughts into our mind. He tries to project his own thoughts and his own way of thinking into our minds. Our minds are like antennas and we can either be tuned into the Holy Spirit, or we could be tuned into the forces of darkness. And if we don't' guard our hearts and aren't disciplined the enemy's gonna find a way to project his thoughts into our minds and into our hearts.
So in my earlier years, something would get me off track. Maybe it would just be that I would come home and maybe I was just really tired, you know because when you're really stressed and really tired it's easier for the enemy to get in. And the enemy would come in and begin to put a thought in my mind about somebody that was close to me that would produce division. And in those early years without being discerning as to what was going on, I could begin to get into a flow that would just create division. It would just create separation. But as I've grown, remember Paul prayed here in Philippians 1:9, "I pray that your love would grow," he said, "Still more and more". And so as I got older, because I was practicing walking in greater love, denying my flesh, treating the significant person in my life with greater love irregardless of what my feelings were and as I started walking in greater love I started enjoying more peace.
I knew I was walking in the light in a greater degree and then when the enemy came and tried to get me off track when I was tired, then if I got a little off track immediately I would say, "You know what? The way that you're thinking right now this is not God". And because I had the discernment now, because I had practiced walking in love, walking in light, because of the discernment I was able to say, "You know what? This isn't God". And I was able to pull myself back and get into agreement with love. So I ask you today, maybe you're at a place in your life right now, there's somebody that's coming to mind, maybe it's more than one person. There's been division there. There's been separation there.
nd right now the Holy Spirit, because of His love for you, is bringing you conviction that you have a problem with somebody in your life and you know that part of the problem is because of you, that you have allowed your attitude to get soured, that you have been in agreement not with God's thoughts about that person, not with thoughts of love, but you've been in agreement with thoughts of accusation. Remember Satan is called the accuser of the brethren. And you have got into a negative spirit, your attitude has gotten into a funk. You just have a negative attitude towards this person and God right now my child, He is calling you back to repent and to say, "I reject that. Father God forgive me. I reject that". And He's calling now for you to get back into agreement with love. And so what we're gonna do right now is we're just gonna let the Holy Spirit beloved ones, bring into our mind, our heart, relationships in our life where we need to get back into adjustment and into alignment with the Holy Spirit and back into thoughts of love.
So Father God in Yeshua's name right now I just ask that You would speak to hearts. Father these that are watching right now, these that are listening, Father those relationships that they're engaged in that are outside of Your spirit, they're outside of love and Father God that a simple correction can be made right now, Father, in the heart and attitude of these that are watching to bring those relationships back into love, to restore those relationships to harmony and into divine alignment.
So right now beloved one, I want to ask you, just speak to God. Just say to Him:
Father God, Lord Jesus, I repent. I've been selfish. I've been mean spirited. I've got into agreement with evil and negativity. I'm not walking in love in my relationship with so and so. Right now Father God by Your grace I'm gonna overcome evil with good and I'm gonna begin to practice love. I'm gonna begin to reach out. I'm gonna begin to restore this relationship by rejecting thoughts of accusation and reaching out in love. In Jesus name amen.
So beloved ones, this is the first thing that Paul prays, that we would abound in love still more and more. And there's always more. Remember love is the greatest of all. Let's continue on in verse number nine. He says, "And this I pray: that your love may abound still more and more," here we go, "In real knowledge and all discernment". So now he's asking that we would have real knowledge and discernment. Do you know there's such a thing as false knowledge and false discernment? In other words, we can look as we're considering this theme of love, because Paul was praying that we would abound in love still more and more and that we would have real knowledge and discernment.
So the real knowledge that he's speaking of here beloved one and the discernment are connected to the increase in love that he's praying for. Right? So what's the difference between real knowledge? Because he says that you would have real knowledge. If he's speaking of real knowledge there must be a type of knowledge here that's not real. Right? And there is. Remember Adam and Eve, they ate off the tree of what? They were allowed to eat off every tree, but they couldn't eat off the tree of what? The knowledge, right? In the book of Genesis, of good and evil, of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil they shouldn't eat. They could not eat, but they did and they reaped death.
Now you see there are certain types of knowledge that are not good for us to know. We don't want knowledge beloved, that is knowledge that corrupts us. In other words, there are many different types of knowledge and the enemy has a type of knowledge that doesn't produce love, but it's the type of knowledge that comes off the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, that produces death. And so the real knowledge and the discernment that the Apostle Paul is praying for here is the type of knowledge that sees a persons heart. In other words, you can get all types of accusatory knowledge against a person. You can find out all the wrong things that they did, all the wrong things that they said and many of those things might be true on paper, but it's not real knowledge. That's the false knowledge that comes from the enemy. That's the type of knowledge that produces separation, produces hate. God says, "No I want to give you real knowledge and I want to give you real discernment".
Where does real knowledge and real discernment come from? It comes from the Holy Spirit. It allows us to see a person's heart. It allows us to not just get the knowledge of all the things they did wrong, but real knowledge allows us to see their heart and their need, so that we could have compassion on that person and look past the offense and we can love them.
And so there's true discernment and false discernment. You know some people think they're walking in the spirit of prophecy and they go up to people and they point out people's sins, but they don't realize that the spirit of prophecy that they're walking in sometimes is not coming from the Holy Spirit. It's coming from the accuser of the brethren. And so most prophecy in the New Testament, Paul tells us, is designed to build up, to comfort, to exhort and to encourage. But some people feel they're operating in prophecy. They think they have discernment about people's sin, but really what is happening is that the enemy is giving them a knowledge about a person that brings division and hatred. And so we want to understand that real knowledge and real discernment produces love. So I want to pray for each one of us right now.
Father God in Jesus name You told us Father God that everything's gonna pass away, but hope, faith and love. And that these three will endure forever. And that Father the greatest of these is love.