Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Who has control over death? Who has control over where they're going to go when they die outside of having a faith that's rooted in God's Son, Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah? Did you know that you've been chosen to be conformed to the image of God's Son? The destiny that God has for you and I is to look exactly like Jesus. The Bible says that as we fix our eyes on the Lord through the Spirit, we're being changed into the likeness of God. How do we do that? Through the Word. One of the ways we fix our eyes on the Spirit is by fixing our eyes and heart on the Word because the Bible tells us that the words that Jesus spoke are spirit and life.

Jesus said in John 6:63, "The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life." The scripture tells us that as we fix our eyes on the Spirit, we're being changed from glory to glory into the likeness of God's Son. As we focus on the prayer life of Jesus and truly are receiving his Word through this into our heart, we're actually being transformed, washed, and sanctified, and becoming more and more like Jesus. We are truly on a supernatural journey of transformation. If you're the real thing, in other words, if you are truly in relationship with God, God's Spirit is really in you, which is a real truth. Those that know God and love God, it's because the Spirit of the living God actually inhabits them.

Paul said in the book of Romans, "If the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead doesn't dwell in you, then you don't belong to him." God's Spirit truly lives within his people. When God's Spirit is in you, you're being changed. This is a scientific reality. In my life, every year I'm being changed from grace to grace, from strength to strength, from glory to glory. I don't say this to bring any attention to myself; I'm just saying this is a real transformation reality. The people that know me see it. I'm constantly being changed because I'm focusing on Jesus through his grace, I'm focusing on his Word, and as I do, I'm being changed into his likeness. The same thing is true of all of you that truly love God and are giving yourself to him.

Let's continue this series. We're looking today in the book of Matthew, chapter 26, verses 39 and 42. I'm going to be pulling specific statements out of a few prayers and making reference because a lot of these concepts in the prayers I've spoken of in previous episodes. Jesus went a little beyond them, fell on his face and prayed saying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not my will, but thy will be done." Many of you are familiar with this portion of scripture. Jesus is about to go to the cross. He's in agony. His soul is troubled. It's very difficult. This was not an easy thing. The Bible says that the night before the crucifixion, Jesus was so much in agony, he was sweating drops of blood.

He knew that he was about to absorb the sin of the world. I believe that the greatest pain that Jesus suffered on the cross, more so than the nails through his hands and his feet, the greater pain is when the Bible says that Jesus, he that knew no sin, became sin on our behalf that we would become the righteousness of God. The greatest pain that Jesus was about to endure, greater than the nails through his hands and his feet, was the pain of knowing that he that was undefiled, that was the pure, spotless Lamb of God, was about to take on the most wretched, vile sin of the entire world, and not only that, but all our sicknesses and diseases according to the book of Matthew chapter 8, verse 16 and 17.

Jesus gets done healing all the people, and Matthew says that it was to fulfill what was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah chapter 53, verse 3 and 4, when Isaiah says, "He himself took our sickness, he bore our sickness." What happened is when Jesus was on the cross as our substitute, he took into himself our sickness and our sin, and he died in our place. Can you imagine how wretched that is, how defiled he became for us so that he that knew no sin became sin on our behalf so that we could become the righteousness of God? That's what this pure, sinless Lamb of God was about to face. That's why it was so agonizing that he would sweat drops of blood about it, so painful that it is undescribable to truly express what he went through.

Jesus is facing this huge mountain and he said, "Father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me." In other words, if there's any other way. But then he said, "Yet not my will," and he bowed his knee and said, "Not my will, but thy will be done." I want to ask you a question. Are you and I practicing bending our knee? When we come to those difficult places in life where we know we're being challenged by the Word of God and the Holy Spirit to say no to ourselves and yes to God? How are you and I doing when we're faced with difficult decisions in our life that we know are going to cause us pain, but we know what the right thing to do is?

Are we trying to get around that thing in disobedience or are we bending the knee like Jesus and saying, "But Father, not my will, but thy will be done"? This is the heart of a true disciple. That's why Jesus said, "Any that want to follow me must pick up his cross, deny himself and follow me." What does he mean pick up his cross? It's exactly what we're talking about right here. The cross represented dying to self and doing the Father's will. "Not my will," Jesus said, "but thy will be done." Let's right now just present our hearts to the Lord. I want to invite you, if you can, maybe there's something in your life that the Father's been speaking to you about and you've been unwilling to listen to let him in.

You've been unwilling to yield your will to his will and say to him, "Yes, Father, your wine goes down smoothly, not my will but thy will be done." That concept that I just shared, your wine goes down smoothly, that's from the Song of Songs when the Shulamite bride said, "your wine goes down smoothly," meaning that the will of God had now taken up primary residence in her heart, so she wasn't fighting with God all the time about who she was going to obey, her or the Lord. Right now, let's just bring our hearts to the Lord and say, "Father God, I come right now concerning areas in my heart that I have not bowed to you in."

"Father, concerning areas in my life where I have not bowed my knee like I see your Son Jesus doing here, where he knew how painful it was for him to go to the cross and yet he bowed his knee in obedience and said yes to you and denied himself. Father, right now, give me the grace. Help me, Father God. Help me, Father God. Strengthen me by your Spirit to say yes to you in those areas or that area of my life, Father, where I know that I have to do something. I've been putting off doing it. I've been unwilling to yield to you in this area of my life. But right here and right now, I make a decision to break that disobedience off my life. I refuse to yield to the stubborn heart anymore, and I yield to you like I see Jesus doing here, saying yes to you and saying, Father, not my will but thy will be done."

I know for some of you there were specific areas in your life that the Lord has been dealing with you about, and I pray and trust that just now as you said that prayer, you just made a covenant with God to forsake disobedience, to forsake your own willfulness, to say yes to God, and to follow him alone. What an awesome example of how to live. Things in our life that the Holy Spirit speaks to us about, we say yes to him, not my will but thy will be done.

Dustin Roberts: You're listening to Discovering The Jewish Jesus, and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, I want to invite you to take Rabbi's teachings with you wherever you go with the Discovering The Jewish Jesus podcast. Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and many more, you can listen to all of Rabbi's powerful messages anytime. Stay rooted in God's Word. Just search for Discovering The Jewish Jesus on your favorite podcasting platform today.

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Rabbi K.A. Schneider: I want to continue on now. We're going to the book of Luke, chapter number 23, verses number 34 and 46, as we're examining the prayer life of Jesus. Jesus said, "If the words that I speak will live in you, if my words live in you," Jesus said, "you will ask what you will in prayer and it will be done for you." As we receive the words of Jesus into our heart truly in spirit and truth and act on them, we're going to find God answering our prayers in a greater way than ever before. For those of you that just repented just now of a certain area in your life where you've been holding God out, where you've been stubborn, where you've known what he's wanted you to do but you've been unwilling to yield, but just now you received his Word and you let go of that thing and you said yes to God and no to yourself and you said, "not my will but thy will be done," what you did is you received the words of Jesus into your heart, and as a result, you're going to operate in greater power and you're going to see more prayers being answered as Jesus is magnified in your life.

As Jesus was on the cross, as we're continuing now looking at the prayer life of Jesus, he says, Father, right before he was going to pass away, right before his spirit was going to leave his body, right before he was going to die physically, the last thing Jesus says is what? Luke 23:46. Jesus says, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Once again, the last thing Jesus said: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." Having said that, he breathed his last. Psychiatrists and psychologists have told us that subconsciously man's greatest fear is the fear of death. The Bible tells us that Satan holds people in bondage their whole life through the fear of death.

That is the mother of all fears. In other words, many of us are not conscious that we're afraid to die. We have other fears that we are conscious of, but sometimes the root fear that you have, even though you're not conscious of it, is the fear of death. You may be afraid of different things that you call phobias, and you don't think that you're afraid to die. But oftentimes what happens is that the fear of death that people naturally have is pressed down, suppressed, and covered up. When that fear of death is suppressed and covered up to where you're not even aware that it's there, the fear that's covered up springs forth in different forms.

It's like there's a seed that's there, and you don't know what the genesis of the seed is, which is the fear of death, but because you still have that fear there that's covered up, that fear is springing out of your life in strange ways. Maybe you have a fear of blurting out something all of a sudden that you don't want to say. Maybe you have some other kind of strange fear of growing old. Even things that make sense like losing a job or going broke, all types of things that we can think of make sense, but ultimately many of these fears are rooted in the fear of death. Once we conquer the fear of death, knowing that when we die we're going to go to be with God, many of the other fears that we had go away.

Jesus said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." Once we break the fear of death, we're going to realize that many of the other fears that we had go away. The fear of death represents the ultimate fear of the unknown. Think about it. Don't people fear the unknown? What is the greatest unknown? The greatest unknown is death itself. But Jesus says in the midst of facing death with confidence, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." He knew where he was going to go. The Bible says in John 13 that Jesus, knowing that he had come from God, knowing that the Father had given him all things, and knowing that he was going back to God, began to serve and wash the disciples' feet.

Jesus knew he was going back to God. He knew that when he was going to leave this world, he was going to go back to God. If you and I don't have a confidence that we're going to go to be with God when we die, we're going to have the ultimate fear of the unknown because we don't know what we're going to face, and that's a scary thing. Secondly, death, when we don't know that we're going to be going to God when we die, it represents the ultimate fear of being out of control. Many times people have a tremendous fear of being out of control. Think about it. If you don't have confidence when you leave this world that you're going to go to be with God in his presence, if you don't have that assurance, that means that when you die you are going to be in a place where you're completely out of control.

Who has control over death? Who has control over where they're going to go when they die outside of having a faith that's rooted in God's Son, Jesus, Yeshua the Messiah? I just wanted to point out to you here as we look into the prayer life of Jesus, Jesus deep in his heart, as we're examining his heart, he had a tremendous assurance and knowing that when he left this world he was going to go to be with God, and I want you to have that same confidence and assurance in your life. The Bible tells us concerning the scriptures that these things have been written to you that believe in the name of the Son of God that ye might know that ye have eternal life.

God wants us to have the assurance like Jesus does that when we leave this world we're going to be with him. I'm going to pray for us right now that the Father will put his hands on our heart and give us assurance that when we die we're going to go to heaven. Many of us lack assurance. We love God, we believe God, we believe in Jesus, but truth be told, we're still a little afraid of dying. We still need a greater assurance that when we die we're going to go to heaven. Let's ask God to strengthen our faith right now in his Word and by his Spirit that we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that we would know that we know that we're going to heaven when we die, that we would be like Jesus: "Father, with complete assurance, into thy hands I commit my spirit."

Father God, we want to thank you today for sending us your Son. Father, we want to thank you for giving us your Word. Father, thank you that you told us in your Word, "He that hath the Son hath the life." That these things have been written to us, John said, that those that believe in the name of the Son of God might know that they have eternal life. We want to thank you today, Father God. We want to tell you today that we love you, that we believe your Word today, that we've received Jesus your Son into our heart as Messiah today. According to your Word, Father God, when we made that decision, when we chose to love you, to turn to you, to repent of our sin, Father God, by turning our life over to you, by seeking you, by overcoming.

Father God, we know we're not perfect but we're on the journey of perfection, that we're leading a life of repentance. You told us, Father, that when we are walking in this way, we could know that when we die we're going to go to heaven. But sometimes, Father God, we wonder if we've done enough. We wonder if we've repented enough. We wonder, Father God, if we've striven harder enough to enter into the narrow gate because Jesus said many would seek to enter and not be able. Father, you know the struggle that we have. We have the assurance of eternal life and yet we also, Father God, have a godly fear because Jesus told us that many would seek to enter and not be able, that we should strive to enter into the narrow gate.

Father, I ask you to release right now assurance over the hearts of your people that truly belong to you. Father, those that have been purchased by the blood of your Son. Father, those that are truly striving to overcome. Father, those that truly love you with a genuine love. Father, whose lives have truly been marked by a lifestyle of repentance. Father, I ask you right now to release by your Spirit a wave of the love of God over each one of their hearts, giving them the assurance, Lord, that you have chosen them, that Father, they are your beloved. Father, that you would give them the assurance they belong to you and that when they die they're going to go, Father God, into heaven, they're going to go, Father God, into your presence.

So Father God, we could know with assurance that we could say like Jesus, Father God, with complete confidence: "Father God, into thy hands I commit my spirit." Father God, right now I break the fear of death off of your people with the knife, Father God, of your Word in Jesus' name. Satan, I break the power of every demon that is accusing God's people right now and bringing a fear of judgment upon them. I break you off right now with the knife, Satan, of the Word of God in Yeshua Hamashiach's name. Right now, Father God, I breathe and I release, Father God, a wave of assurance by the Holy Spirit of the love of God on the hearts of your people that they would know Jesus that they're yours. Father God, you said that what I loose on earth would be loosed in heaven. Father God, right now in Jesus' name, I release a wave, Father God, of the knowledge of your compassion and your love for your people that we would have complete assurance, Father God, of going to heaven to be with you when we die in Jesus' name and for Jesus' fame.

Some years ago, the Lord showed me that I was going to reach more people through cutting-edge technology than I have with people on the ground face-to-face through pastoring churches that I've done over the years, large outreaches around the world that we've done. God told me I was going to reach more people through cutting-edge technology. That's why we're investing as a ministry lots of our effort into reaching Jewish people inside Israel through cutting technologies like digital marketing and billboards inside the land. Beloved, we are making a difference and we need your help to continue to do it. We're receiving testimonies of Jewish people that are coming to faith directly because of this ministry.

But it's not just about this ministry; it's about your ministry too. When you sow financially into it, would you be a part of reaching Jewish people with the good news of Messiah through Discovering The Jewish Jesus? I want to humbly ask you, beloved, to make a financial sacrifice to the Lord through DJJ today.

Dustin Roberts: Amen. And if God is calling you to give a financial gift of any amount to Discovering The Jewish Jesus, would you please give online at DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com? And if it's easier for you, just give us a call. Our number is 800-777-7835. We also want you to know if you'd like to send your financial donation in the mail, you can send it to Discovering The Jewish Jesus, Post Office Box 777, Blissfield, Michigan, 49228.

And while you know what Rabbi just shared about reaching Jewish people with the Gospel is so exciting, and right now we've placed a series of billboards throughout Israel. In fact, we just found out one of them was vandalized and torn down. It is tough to reach out to Jewish people with the Gospel because there is a history in Jewish culture of rejecting Jesus. So we've got a hard task ahead of us, friends, but we're made for that calling and we're going to keep sharing Jesus with Jewish people all around the world. So if you'd like to support this ministry, we'd like to encourage you to do just that. Give today at DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com or text the keyword "give" to the number 88777. Now here's Rabbi with God's special blessing.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Blessings trump curses. And in the book of Numbers chapter 6, we find the Aaronic blessing that God commanded Moses' brother Aaron, the high priest, to speak over the children of Israel. There's power in blessing, beloved, so take part in receiving Father's blessing upon your life today.

Yevarekheka Adonai veyishmerekha. Ya'er Adonai panav elekha veyikhuneka. Yissa Adonai panav elekha veyasem lekha shalom.

The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance and the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. God bless you and Shalom.

Dustin Roberts: This program is produced and sponsored by Discovering The Jewish Jesus. And I'm your host, Dustin Roberts. Join us tomorrow when Rabbi Schneider helps us discover the comfort of knowing God is closer than you think. That's Thursday on Discovering The Jewish Jesus.