Rabbi Schneider — Intent (05/23/2017)
God bless you and Shalom, beloved ones. My name's Rabbi Schneider; welcome today to this important broadcast of Discovering the Jewish Jesus. We're in part number today in a series that I'm calling A Parallel Reality.
I've been declaring over the last several broadcasts how there is a reality, beloved, that's hidden from the natural man, that is right here and right now and exists on planet earth. It's a parallel reality. It's known as eternal life. It's also known as the kingdom of God.
We've been talking about how we can enter into the supernatural reality that's waiting for us to discover and that Jesus promised us. I encourage you to get this entire series. The contact information for it is at the end of the broadcast today.
I want to begin today by continuing to lay a foundation. I'm going to the Gospel of John. I'll be reading from chapter 1, verse number 5 through 10. Hear the Word of God. John says this:
The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There came a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness, to testify about the Light, so that all might believe through him. He was not the Light, but he came to testify about the Light. There was the Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. (John 1:5-10)
I want to go back to verse number 5. Many translations read that the light shines in the darkness, get this now, but the darkness could not, get it, overpower it, extinguished it or comprehend it; that there's a light that shines in the world, in our world.
There's a light here. And the light that's in the world cannot be comprehended by the natural man. It cannot be extinguished by the natural man. And it cannot be put out by demonic powers of darkness.
There is a supernatural reality that's here. And John says that he came to announce this reality that was embodied in the man, Christ Jesus. Now as John continues on this discourse, he finishes this with verse number 10. Listen what he says in verse number 10.
He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.
So Jesus came into the world and the world that he created didn't comprehend him. It didn't know him. It didn't recognize him. The point that I'm making, beloved ones, is that there is reality that's here and it's now and most people don't see it. They don't recognize it. They don't comprehend it.
And yet it's real, it's here, it's supernatural, it's for you and it's now. This reality that I'm proclaiming to, it's a parallel reality. It's parallel because it exists here and now, right above the natural world.
It exists apart from and outside your circumstances. It has nothing to do with your economic background. It doesn't matter what family you were born into. It doesn't matter what type of job you're in. It doesn't depend on how beautiful or how not beautiful you are physically. It's an alternative reality, a parallel reality, and you can access it by Jesus.
We've been talking over the last several weeks about how you can access this parallel reality, how you can enter into the dimension Jesus described as eternal life. We talked in the previous broadcasts about number one, the need for desiring it intensely. Unless you intently and intensely desire this other reality, you'll never enter into it because desire will propel you into it.
Without desire you'll have no power to enter in. I've been talking about Jacob that took ahold of God and said I'm not gonna let go unless you bless me. His desire is what brought him the blessing. That's why Jesus said the kingdom of God belongs to those that hunger and thirst after it.
The psalmist prayed, as the soul longs for water, as the deer pants for water, so my soul pants for you, O God. And then we talked about the necessity of faith because without faith that you can really have what God says you can have, you won't have desire for. You just think it's a pretty fairy tale.
You'll think it's a poetic pleasantry, some type of poetic platitude. But you know what? What I'm declaring to you, it's not some poetry for a greeting card. It's real and it can be yours. It can be mine. Jesus said if the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.
If you have faith that you can be free, if you have faith that you can achieve the victory that Jesus promised you, the Bible says that we're more than conquerors through him that loved us, that we're overcoming the world, that we have overcome the world, that greater is he that's in us than he that's in the world, that we've been raised with him and are seated with him in the heavenly places.
If you can believe that you can really enter into this realm of victory that Jesus promised, then you're gonna have desire to enter in, and then you're gonna do the things necessary to get into it, to enter into it; because God doesn't just drop it on us, but he calls us to it, and we then warfare to enter into it.
That's why the Bible says strive to enter into his rest. Even as God gave Israel the Promised Land, he gave it to him as a blessing, he gave it to them as their inheritance, and yet they had to drive out the Amorites, the Hittites, the Jebusites and all the other "ites" to enter in.
So God did it with their cooperation, not when they were just passively waiting for something to happen. Too many of you are just passively waiting for something to happen in your life.
You're just passively waiting for God to show up. You're just passively waiting for a miracle to happen. But I want you to know that you have to be in cooperation with God to fully access what he has for you. It's by faith.
You see faith is an action word. We believe in our heart but then we speak it forth the word of faith. You see, we have to cooperate with God. We have to exercise faith. That's what the whole Book of James is about. James said, I will show you by faith, James said, by my works.
And so we have to be cooperating with God by faith to enter in. So I want to just challenge anybody right now that you've just been passive. You're wondering why you're feeling melancholy.
You're wondering why nothing's happening. You're wondering why God hasn't shown up. But Jesus said, draw near to God and he'll draw near to you. Ask and you'll receive. Knock and the door will be open. Seek and you shall find. You see, we have to cooperate with God.
We have to be engaged with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is an engine within us. We press in to take possession. You see the woman that was healed in the Gospels that had the hemorrhage of blood coming from her, the healing didn't just fall upon her while she was passively sitting on a rock somewhere. But she said, if I can just touch him, I'll be healed.
And that woman, beloved ones, get this now because it's a picture of the faith that we need to have to access the blessing, to access the victory to enter into this parallel reality, this world of faith and victory that I'm declaring today. This woman, beloved, she said if I could just touch him I'll be healed.
And get it now, she pressed through the crowd. She pressed through everybody that was in her way. She pressed in. She pressed through. They told her to shut up, but she kept pressing in. She didn't let anything stop her. She said, I'm gonna touch him. Nothing's gonna deny me. And she pressed through the hindrance. She pressed through the resistance. And when she touched him, she was healed. Jesus turned around.
He said, who touched me, Jesus said, and we're gonna look at this in a little bit. Jesus said, who touched me, for I felt the power go out from me. You see, Jesus didn't even know who got healed. He just knew that someone touched her, touched him rather.
And you know what Jesus said? He looked at the woman, he said, listen, he said, woman your faith, get this now, he said to her, listen, he said, your faith, he said, your faith has saved you. And so we talked about desire and then we talked about faith.
That in order to enter into this parallel world, this world that Jesus called eternal life in the kingdom of God, we have to exercise faith. We can't just be sitting around waiting for a miracle, just lounging on the couch watching secular television, and then wonder why we don't feel anything, wonder why nothing's happening.
No, we need to believe because we believe that it's real and that we can have it, and then we desire. We then press in and things start happening.
The kingdom of God starts moving in our life and the Holy Spirit begins to engage us, and he becomes a living, moving being within us. As we are engaged with him, we begin to sense and experience, beloved, the full power of the Holy Spirit moving and operating in our life.