Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: We should not let the fear of man stop us from continually having the praise of the Lord in our mouth. But too many of us are not bringing the praise of God into the world in our lives at all.

For many of us that love the scriptures, one of our biblical heroes is the King of Israel, David. We call him in Hebrew, David Melech. In fact, we have a little song that we sometimes sing. It goes like this. David Melech, Melech Israel, David Melech, Melech Israel, David Melech, Melech Israel, David HaMelech, Laila, laila, lai, laila, lai, laila, lai, laila, lai. And we continue on, but it's all about this person that we're so drawn to in the scriptures, David.

And the reason that many of us are drawn to him is because we see that he was a man, a human being just like us, with strengths and weaknesses. We see for example, some of the sins that David committed with Bathsheba and even putting her husband in the front lines on the battlefield so he would be killed so David could take his wife. I mean, we see some real situations in David's life that make us realize he's a human being and he fell at times in his walk with the Lord just like we do.

But we also see his greatness. And one of the things that David said that so moves my heart was what he said to the Lord, your gentleness has made me great. I don't know if that resonates with you beloved one, but that so deeply impacts my heart. David was saying, it wasn't his own righteousness that made him great. It wasn't anything within him that made him great. David said his greatness came from the Lord's gentleness towards him.

Even when David fell, Father God never forsook him. He disciplined him, he corrected him. David had to end up suffering for his sin, but God's covenant with his son was never forsaken. God's gentleness, his faithfulness to David is what made David great. And so today we're going to be looking at one of David's Psalms. It's one of my favorites. It's Psalm number 34.

The grass withers and the flowers fade, but beloved ones, the Word of Hashem, the Word of God abides forever. Hear the Word of God, verse number one. David says, I will bless the Lord. And as I've taught many times on this show beloved ones, whenever we see in the Tanakh or the Old Testament, the letters capital L, capital O, capital R, and capital D, what is actually happening here is that the English translators are translating this all cap Lord from God's personal name, which is Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey, as revealed to Moses in the book of Shemot, in the book of Exodus.

Moses said, who should I say sent me? The Lord said, I am that I am. And then the Lord went further on to declare to Moses, your forefathers Moses, knew me as El Shaddai. They knew me as God Almighty, but by my name, and then the Lord breathed out a breathy Yahweh, which is composed of the Hebrew letters, Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey, the Lord said, they did not know me. So Yahweh, Yud, Hey, Vav, Hey, is God's personal covenant name that he revealed to the children of Israel.

So King David here is speaking of the Lord. He's calling upon the Lord and praising him in his personal name. He's not just addressing God with an impersonal Lord. He's actually calling him by his name. I will bless Yahweh is what David's actually saying here. You see, Lord or God is a title, but Yahweh is a person. God is a person. David says, I will bless the Lord. I will bless Yahweh at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth.

Let this not just be a hopeful inspiration for you, but make it a declaration. You see, David was giving a declaration here. He said, I will. Notice again. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. David was setting the course of his will. He was becoming a soldier when he said, every day, I will bless the Lord and his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Let me tell you something, beloved, that declaration is within your grasp and within my grasp because the Lord has given us a will.

David didn't say, I will bless the Lord. I will bless Yahweh when I feel like it. Because if he said, I will bless the Lord when I feel like it, it wouldn't have been continual. But he said his praise shall continually be in my mouth. Why could it be continual? Because it was a choice. It was a matter of the will. And you and I can control our will. I remember many years ago when I was competing as a wrestler, and we had to go to wrestling practice every day.

Now, I didn't always feel like going to wrestling practice because, you know, you're sweating, you're exerting all your effort, you can hardly breathe sometimes because the battle is so intense. You don't feel like going to wrestling practice, but it was a decision of my will. It's because of what I wanted to accomplish. And so, we're making a decision in the same way. I will bless the Lord at all times, not because I always feel like it, but it's because that's what we want for our life.

It's because that's where we want to go. It's because that's what our destiny is, to be united to him in victory. And in order to walk in victory, we have to transcend living by our feelings, and we need to become solid soldiers and live by our will. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. You see, some of you are like me. Sometimes we can wake up in the morning and we feel fresh and we feel encouraged and we don't even know why.

It just feels, you know, like it's a good day today. But other times we wake up in the morning and we're still feeling sluggish. Maybe we're feeling empty. Maybe we're feeling just kind of out of it. Maybe we don't have anything within us feeling-wise that's inspiring us to bless God or to praise him with our mouth. But you know what we do, beloved? Even when we feel nothing, even when we have no emotion that is propelling us to praise him, we have a choice still.

We still have the power over our will. And so what I do is I spend time with the Lord every morning, which I encourage all God's sons and daughters to do, to start the day blessing Father through Yeshua. Because when you start the day like that, regardless of how you're feeling, but you do it because of a decision of your will, you set the course of your life for the rest of that day. It's called the law of first fruits. When you give God the first part of your day, it orders the rest of your day.

So sometimes, getting back to living by feeling and by choice, because we have power over our will, sometimes when I wake up in the morning, just like you, and I'm feeling blasé, I'm feeling disconnected, I'm feeling tired, maybe even we had bad dreams the night before or we didn't get much sleep. Still, we have a choice to praise him. So what I'll do is I'll just begin to say, Father, thank you today. I'll begin to pray over my wife. Father, thank you for the life that you've given us.

For the opportunity, Lord, to know you and to love you. Father, for the potential that's in this day to overcome and to be transformed. Father, thank you for all the goodness that you've shown us over all these years. And beloved, when we make that decision to praise him, to bless him, to speak forth his glory and to speak forth his wonders, all of a sudden our emotions change. Just five minutes ago, we were feeling disconnected and we had no desire to praise him, but because we chose to do so, because we have a will and we can choose, we begin to declare his praise.

David said, his praise shall continually be in my mouth. After doing that for five minutes, all of a sudden we feel good. All of a sudden life comes into us. All of a sudden we have joy. All of a sudden our perspective of the day has been completely changed. Why? Because we transported ourself in the spirit by choosing, by using our will. Jesus didn't say, whoever feels come. He says, whoever will come.

And so I want to encourage you today, when we read David's words, I will bless the Lord at all times. He's making a declaration. He's setting the course of his life. It's not whether he feels like it, he said, I will. You see, Marines, every day they get up and they're not making a choice based upon their feeling whether they feel like being a Marine today, but they've set their will. I am a Marine today. I'm going to get up. I'm going to do my job. I'm going to go out to battle. I'm going to be strong.

They transcend their feelings by making a choice with their will. And friends, beloved ones, my Mishbocha, my family, my Havaim, my friends, you have the power to choose. You can say, enough of this. Enough of this lukewarmness. I'm not going to let the enemy control me anymore by my emotions. I am going to set the Lord continually before me. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I'm going to start every day, Father God, with you, reading my devotional or reading some scripture and I'm going to bless you, Father.

And I'm going to thank you for your goodness, for all that you've done for me all these years, for bringing me into a knowledge of your son. Father, I bless you today. I thank you for the day. It may not be easy, but beloved, if you continue to do this, you're going to get strong. And when you get strong, you'll be happy.

Host: You're listening to Discovering The Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, here's a testimony from a listener who's been touched by Rabbi's teachings.

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Rabbi K.A. Schneider: I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. Now, if we're setting our course so that his praise is continually in our mouth, you know what that means? It means we're not just going to praise him in the morning when we're alone in our prayer closet, in the room in our home or wherever we are where we're praising him.

But it means that it's continual, so it means as as you go about your day, there's going to be a natural praising God all day long. It's going to be reflective when you go to the store to buy something, when you check out in line, you're going to say something like, God bless you. God loves you. Baruch Hashem. Praise the Lord. His praise is going to be in your mouth all day long. People are going to know it. Your friends are going to know it. The people that you work with are going to know it. You're going to be able to say, praise God, out in the open, out in the public.

You're not going to hide your faith because his praise shall continually be in your mouth. You're a light in the world. We should not let the fear of man stop us from continually having the praise of the Lord in our mouth. Now, I know that we need to have wisdom and I know that there's appropriate timing. But too many of us are not bringing the praise of God into the world in our lives at all. We may praise him privately. We may open our mouth and praise him in our congregations when we're worshipping him and everybody is singing together.

But when you think about your lifestyle five days a week, when you're out in the working world or six days a week, whatever, is your praise emanating from your life then so that people can see it? David, he didn't walk around and he didn't compartmentalize his life so that he only praised God when he was in certain places at certain times. All of David's talk was seasoned with praise to Hashem. Baruch Hashem, bless the name. Bless the name of the Lord.

People should hear that or similar phrases coming from our mouth all the time. So what if they don't understand us? So what if not everybody can receive it? Let's not let them control us. Let's not let the culture control us. Let's change the culture by being a positive force of light for Hashem, for God in the world. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. I want to challenge you today. Open your mouth and praise him and don't let the world or anybody shut you up.

Your mouth should be a continual fountain of praise to God. And everybody should know that you're a light in the world shining for God. Whether they accept it or reject it, they know who you are and what you stand for, that you've got a grateful heart to Hashem, to God, your Father. David continues in the next verse, My soul will make its boast in the Lord, the humble will hear it and rejoice. Now, let's think about this. There's really two different concepts that we want to focus on.

First David says, My soul will make its boast in the Lord. What this means is David's confidence in God was apparent to all. The Bible says, let he that boast, boast in the Lord. Let he that boast, boast that he knows me. When you're coming from the right spirit, there's nothing wrong with boasting in God, boasting about God. People see your confidence in God. People see that you're confident in yourself in God. Sometimes we're so concerned that we need to stay humble.

That the enemy is actually using that against us because we're not receiving the confidence God wants us to have in ourselves in him. When you look, for example, at Jesus, who's our example and our model, let me ask you a question. Was Yeshua confident in himself? Absolutely. He was confident in himself, beloved one, in God. Now notice that David continues this thought by saying, the humble will hear it and rejoice. So first David is saying, my soul will make its boast in the Lord.

My soul will make its boast in the Lord. The humble will hear it and rejoice. Why would the humble rejoice when David is making his boast in the Lord? Because David's humility is giving confidence to those that are struggling that God will help them as well. Humility has to do with dependency. So when David says he's making his boast in the Lord, what David is saying is that he's going to make it known to people that his confidence and his strength is not in his own abilities, but in God who has become his ability.

That he's depending on God. And because he's depending on God, he's confident. This gives the humble confidence and comfort because the humble realize, there may be an answer for me. Or if there's somebody that already knows the Lord and they're humble, it encourages them because they then can believe in the Lord in a deeper way. So if we have somebody that's really beat up in society, they've really been oppressed. They've been mistreated. They have no hope, they have no confidence.

And someone that's really humble in the Lord comes to that one and starts ministering the love of God to them and start sharing with this one that's struggling, you know what? I was in your shoes too at one time. I was so broken. I was so needy. I was so desperate. I had no hope. And then I met the Father through Yeshua. I met Jesus and my life started changing. And God started giving me victory. He brought me into victory. All of a sudden then, this one that's struggling, that has a humble spirit, they're now encouraged.

And so David says, the humble will hear it and rejoice. It's important to realize that when we are bringing the light of Hashem into the world, we're not doing it in a way that we're lecturing people. We're not doing it in a way, beloved ones, that they feel that we're lording ourselves over them. We're doing it as those that are just like them, but we found the Lord and he became our help. And now our boast is in the Lord. This gives confidence to everybody.

It doesn't feel to them like you're competing against them. Instead it feels like you're pulling for them, that you're in a place of humility just like they are, that you've come from a place of brokenness just like they are. And when they understand that you're just like them and you've found restoration and wholeness in Hashem, that gives them hope. And so David says, the humble will hear it and rejoice. David continues on, he says, oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together.

Beloved, our testimony is so needed in this world that we're living in. People need to see those that truly have a relationship with God. So let's be like David. Let his praise continually be in our mouth. Let the humble hear of our love for Hashem, hear of our love for Jesus, that they can find hope for their own lives. I know that if you have an open heart and you just sat through me preaching, you've been strengthened. God's Word is life giving. It's living and active and sharper than a two-edged sword.

I'm going now as we close today, beloved ones, to the book of Third John. I'm going there to the first chapter and the eighth verse. Hear the Word of God. John says, therefore, we ought to support such men, that we might be fellow workers with the truth. What was going on here is John was encouraging God's people to support those that were faithfully preaching the gospel because, you know what, the gospel can't be spread without God's people supporting it financially. I want to ask you, beloved, if you believe in me, if you're being blessed by discovering the Jewish Jesus, would you support us financially so that we can continue to feed you and, in fact, preach the gospel all over the world?

Beloved, there's always a blessing when we put God first in our life, and when we put him first with our finances, it opens our heart to receive more. This is Rabbi saying, I love you. Thank you for your financial support and shalom.

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Each issue of the newsletter, it brings you up-to-date Ministry news, heartfelt spiritual reflections from his wife, Miss Cynthia, and a moving testimonial or more from lives that are transformed by this ministry. And for those who want to build a deeper understanding of this ministry and the Jewish roots of your faith, I want to encourage you to check out our Messianic content online. At discoveringthejewishjesus.com, you can learn more about God's holy days, the Hebrew names of God, and how Jesus fulfills and mirrors all of Israel's history in a greater way.

Just click on our Ministry and Messianic content tabs to get started. And I believe that this will really be a blessing to you. Once again, if you want to help keep these resources free, would you consider giving or becoming a monthly partner today? We really appreciate every single gift of any size. It all matters. Support us at discoveringthejewishjesus.com or text the keyword give to the phone number 88777. Now here's Rabbi, he's going to speak God's sacred blessing over us. Rabbi.

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

And now in Hebrew. Yevarechecha Yahweh VeYishmerecha, Ya'er Yahweh Panav Eilecha ViChuneka, Yisa Yahweh Panav Eilecha VeYasem Lecha Shalom. God bless you and shalom.

Host: I'm your host Dustin Roberts and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering The Jewish Jesus. Join us tomorrow as Rabbi Schneider dives into Psalm 34 and reveals how community is vital to your spiritual well-being. That's Tuesday on Discovering The Jewish Jesus.