Rabbi Schneider - Entering into the Spirit
I'm taking specific verses out of John's gospel that I really want to focus on, that speak to us of mysteries, truths that we need to unearth to get a better handle on. Today we're continuing in the fourth chapter and we're looking at the episode where Yeshua met the woman in Samaria. The woman at the well, she's often referred to. There's something so beautiful that takes place here in this dialogue between Yeshua, Jesus and the Samaritan woman. I'm gonna pick up now where I left off last week. Join me as I read from the gospel of John, chapter 4 and I'm gonna begin here in verse number 13. Yeshua says to this woman this, speaking of the water in the well where the woman was sitting, where the woman came to.
Yeshua said, "'Everyone that drinks of this natural water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life'. The woman said to Him, 'Sir, give me this water, so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.' He said to her, 'Go, call your husband and come here.'" I'm gonna pick up with that phrase, "Go, call your husband and come here," in a moment. But before I do that, I want to focus on the fact that this woman realized that Yeshua was speaking to her about something that she had not yet experienced. She said, "Give me this water, so that I won't have to thirst anymore and so that I won't have to keep on coming back to this well".
It reminds me of something that happened to me when I was a little boy. I don't know how old I was, I'm guessing seven or eight years old. And I remember the scene so vividly. And I was riding my little bicycle up a hill and I just turned a corner. And this little boy pedaling his bike. I'm going up this hill. I'm going up this hill. I finally get to the top of the hill and turn the corner and I had this thought, beloved one, enter my mind. And the thought that entered my mind was this, wouldn't it be great if my bicycle had a motor in it so that I wouldn't have to pedal so hard and I could just enjoy the ride? I wanted an engine that would be my empowerment in life. This was as a little boy, seven or eight years old, so that life wouldn't be so hard, so that I wouldn't have to pedal the bicycle so hard. I wouldn't have to push so much.
In sense, that's what this woman was saying. "Lord give me this water," she said, "that I won't have to thirst anymore and so I won't have to keep making this long journey to the well every day, schlepping this water around that's so heavy. Give me this newness of life, this empowerment, that will give me joy and relieve the burden and make my life easier". You see Jesus said, "Come to Me, for My yoke is easy and my burden is light". Yeshua wants to empower us, so it doesn't depend on us anymore, that His Spirit gives life. Yeshua said, "My Spirit gives life". The Spirit gives life. The flesh profits nothing. You see some people think when they hear the term born again, that this is some particular persuasion of religiosity. They're the born again types people think of.
You know some type of narrow minded, you know fundamentalist Christian. Being born again has nothing to do with that. Being born again, Jesus said, "Unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom of God". It has to do with receiving the zoe, which is the word in the Greek, the original New Testament language, that has to do with receiving everlasting zoe life. It has to do with receiving the life of God's own Spirit. This is what Jesus is talking about here. "If you drink of Me, if you receive My Spirit into you, My Spirit will come into you". He'll fulfill your soul's deepest yearnings, so you won't have to be looking to the natural anymore; which can never truly permanently fulfill. But rather you'll receive the type of fulfillment that only God can give, the type of fulfillment that you were born for, the type of fulfillment that is what you were made for; because you were made in God's image to live by His life.
Jesus said, "If you receive Me and grow in My life and continue to follow Me, My Spirit is gonna become within you a well of living water that will bubble up from your inside, saturating your psyche, saturating your soul, fulfilling your emotions, clothing you with My beauty, bringing you into intimacy with Me. You'll experience My presence and those things that you've longed for in your innermost being that you didn't even know how they could be fulfilled, but you went after all these things trying to fulfill them; what you'll find is your deepest longing, which can only be made complete in me will be fulfilled and that you will be made whole in Messiah, Yeshua". Beloved, you and I become complete.
What I'm wanting to communicate to you, beloved one, in this series, in this particular section, "Mysteries of the Gospel of John," is the life that you and I should be going after is a supernatural spirit life. Our walk with Jesus is not about religion, it has to do with the Spirit. We're led by the Spirit. Sometimes people think that they're living a full Christian life simply because they're immersed in Christian culture and so much of the Christian culture may be helpful, but it certainly isn't gonna take us all the way in. We need to go beyond Christian culture. We need to enter in to the supernatural realm of Hashem, into the spirit world. What world am I talking about? I'm talking about entering into the spirit life. The Spirit's ways are beyond our ways. The Spirit's thoughts are beyond our thoughts. We're gonna have to journey into the Spirit in a way that only you and I can go individually.
In other words, God is gonna do for each one of us what He did for Abraham. He made Abraham leave everything that was comfortable for him. Abraham had to leave his land. He had to leave his friends. He had to follow the Lord's Spirit, so he could enter in to something so much bigger, so he could enter in to the supernatural promise of God. If you and I are gonna enter in to the spirit life, the supernatural life, this life that fulfills; If we're gonna learn to walk in the Spirit, if we're gonna be able to move in power, we're gonna have to be led by the Spirit. It's gonna be supernatural. God is gonna train us how to abide in Him. He's gonna train us how to hear His voice. He's gonna lead us to do things that make no sense. He's gonna lead us to do things that would embarrass us in the natural. He's gonna stretch us, so that we're gonna do that which is uncomfortable. And as we obey Him like Abraham did, we're gonna enter in to something that's so spectacular, so phenomenal, so full, so beautiful.
Jesus said, "You're gonna enter in to this provision I've made for you and you're gonna find it's what you've always longed for and been seeking for, even though you didn't know what it was. And you're gonna become fulfilled". Let's continue on. Wow, I don't know about you, but I'm going after the supernatural. Life is in the Spirit. The Spirit gives life. Jesus says, "Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst, but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water, springing up to eternal life". Let me comment here that this is not a one time act, because I don't want anybody to become disillusioned here. This is a lifetime pursuit. Jesus said this well of water that people receive when they drink of Him, notice Jesus says, "It will become within him". Listen to the verse with me, "But the water that I will give him will," here's the word, "become in him".
It doesn't happen all at once. This is not a one time zap. Some people that want to try it and you know they dabble in it for a day, a week, whatever it is and then they think it didn't work. No, this is a lifetime pursuit. The Spirit of the Lord becomes within us. It's not the Spirit that's becoming, but it's that we're being filled with the Spirit after a life of pursuing Him, as we decrease as He increases, as we learn how to abide in Him, as we surrender our own power to Him, to become His servants; slowly we're transformed from grace to grace, from glory to glory. Slowly we're transformed, the old things pass away. We become new creations in Messiah Jesus. And as we age, this new wine becomes the fullness of our life and even though the outward body decays as we age, our inner man is being renewed day by day; so that the older we are, the fuller and happier and more joyful and more content we become.
Yesterday I visited a dear beloved friend of mine, a Jewish sister in the Lord. Her name is Agnes Koweski. 91 years old, 91 years old, this woman, this Jewish woman, was supernaturally healed spectacularly years and years ago. She's been following the Lord, I mean passionately, ever since. When Cynthia and I went to see her yesterday, I knocked on the apartment door. I hadn't seen her a few months, so I wasn't sure how she would look. Again, she's 91. I opened the door. I looked at her, beloved ones, she looked so beautiful, so fresh, so at peace, like an innocent little girl. I was so blessed to see Father's faithfulness to His daughter. 91 years old, she had the peace of the Lord on her. Yeah, her hair's all gray. Her skin's wrinkled, all the different things that happen with age, but yet she was clothed in the joy and the peace of Hashem; so that you could visibly see the Father's dew on her face. This is what I'm talking about.
The Spirit of the Lord becomes within us, becomes within us. And so we need to realize as we're aging in life, we need to make a decision. What will we pursue? Are we gonna go after the things of the world as consumers, consuming the things of the world; going from vacation to vacation, this restaurant or this restaurant, this television show to this television show, going after the latest fads, thinking somehow the world is gonna fulfill us, eating it, ingesting it like the woman at the well that was taking the natural water. Jesus said, "No, I want you to stop for a second. I want to tell you about a supernatural water".
You see if you drink your water you're gonna get thirsty again. It might relieve your thirst in the natural for a little while; just like buying a new car makes you feel good for a little while. I even heard about a guy who bought a new refrigerator. He felt so great. He was a young guy. He went out and he bought, he got this apartment and he had to get a refrigerator for the apartment. And he went out. He found this beautiful refrigerator, this is going back about fifteen years ago. And he saw this refrigerator, it was you know really sharp looking, stainless steel, shiny. You pressed a button, cold water came out. Put your glass in, ice came out. He had never had a refrigerator like this before. He had grown up with this old refrigerator that was twenty years old. He purchased this refrigerator, put it in his apartment. And he was like so blessed that he got this beautiful refrigerator in his apartment.
It was the nicest piece of furniture, if you can say that, in his apartment. He was so excited about this new refrigerator, that he literally got out of bed in the middle of the night when he woke up, to go take a look at that refrigerator. He was so impressed with it. But you know what happened? Eventually his love went cold. Alright, the finest everything in the world eventually gets old. It may satisfy for a little while, but it wears off. Everything in the world, the newness of it, wears off. But what Hashem, what Father God gives us, it becomes within us a well of living water, continuously bubbling up, newness of life. God is divine, creative life. He's always new. There's always more. It's always fuller. It's always deeper. And this is what I'm going after.
This is what I want to encourage you to go after. It's a supernatural reality. It's not a natural reality. Some people they think of Jesus as simply a man on the cross that died for their sins. He's so much more than that. Yes, Jesus is God that clothed Himself in humanity, lived as a man on earth for 33 years, went to the cross for our sins. His blood was shed. But God is so much bigger than that beloved. God is invisible. He's a Spirit. He's not a man first. He's a Spirit that took upon flesh and blood, because it was love for you and I. We need to stop thinking of the natural. We need to stop relating to God in the natural. God is Spirit. He has no beginning. He has no end. He's outside of time. He exists outside of space. He exists outside of the material world. He's God and He's called us into a relationship with Him. It's unlimited.
And so get excited about going after God. He has mysteries to bring you and I into that have never even entered our minds before. The scripture says, "Eye has not seen and ear has not heard and it's never even entered into the heart of man, the things that God has prepared for those that love Him". God has such an adventure for you. There's such a journey ahead for those that will go after Jesus with their whole heart. But remember Yeshua said, He spits the lukewarm out of His mouth. It's not enough to compartmentalize Jesus. If you think Jesus is gonna be pleased if you make Him your hobby, rather than going after Him as your life, you are sadly mistaken. Jesus is not willing to be second best in your life. He's not willing to satisfy for our leftovers. He's not gonna take our leftovers. We have to make Him first. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God".
Beloved, I want to encourage you. He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him. But you and I have to go after Him, beloved, with our whole heart. He has to become the passion of our life and the way that you can determine whether Yeshua is really the passion of your life is by looking at the way you and I live; because faith without works is dead. If we say that Jesus is the passion of our life and yet we live like the world, we're running around like chickens with our head cut off. We're not making time for God in our life. If we're not disciplining what we're watching on television, if we're not disciplining the way we're talking and who we're talking to, if we're not disciplining the music that we're listening to, if we're not waking up in the morning and spending time with the Lord, if we're not cultivating a supernatural consciousness of Him and awareness of Him, you know as much as we can all day long every single hour; then He's not really occupying the space in our life that He wants to occupy. But to the degree that we open our heart to Him, which is evidenced by the way that we live to that degree beloved. He'll come in.
He wants to come in, but He can only come in when we make space for Him to come in and want Him to come in and invite Him in. You can crowd Him out. Jesus said, "Behold I stand at the door and knock. If any man opens the door and invites Me in, I'm gonna come in". But you see, we have to partner with God. He doesn't force Himself. He's not a doctrine. He's not a religion. He's a person. And so my question to you, beloved one, is have you put Yeshua, have you put Hashem, Father God first in your life? Right now I'm gonna ask you, I'm gonna give you an opportunity right now. Maybe the Lord is convicting somebody. Maybe as I've spoken today, you realize, that you know what? You thought you loved Jesus. You're going to church, but you know what? You're not really leading a lifestyle that's putting Him first. You're not putting Him first with your time. You're not making time to spend alone with Him everyday. You're not putting Him first with your talent. You're not using the abilities that He's given you, perhaps, to serve Him, to love Him, to be a gift to His people. You're not putting Him first with your treasure, your possessions.
If you're not beloved, today is the day of salvation. God has given you a will. That's the gift, that He's given you and I a will. We can choose. Joshua said, "As for me and my house we will serve the Lord". Again I want to remind you, Jesus is not willing to settle to be our second best. He's not willing to be a hobby of ours. He needs to become the passion of our life. Jesus said, "He that loves father, mother, brother, or sister, more than Me is not worthy of Me". And so Father right now I ask that You will come and open the hearts of those that are agreeing right now, that know they need to make a change.