Discovering The Jewish Jesus

Guest (Male): The Tabernacle shows us how to walk with God. One of the pieces inside the Holy Place in the Tabernacle was the Altar of Incense. The incense is a fragrant aroma ascending unto the Lord.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: Greetings, my holy brothers and sisters. Today, I love you with the love of the Lord. I'm so thankful today to be bringing you a message that can help you stay on the straight and narrow path that leads to life because there are so many voices today, many of which are tickling our ears. The scripture tells us to beware in the last days of teaching that will just tickle our ears. What does it mean to be having teaching that profits us little but tickles our ears? It means that often times we're listening to teaching that makes us feel good, but it doesn't really help us.

I remember years ago, the Lord spoke to me and said, "Repent of the candy." I didn't know what He meant. He wasn't talking about eating earthly food candy. He was talking to me about repenting of the things in your life that you're taking in that feel good but aren't good for you. So much of the teaching today is coming to us because the creators of the content know that's what we want to hear, but it may not be good for us.

When we get back to the Torah, to the ancient pages of the Hebrew Bible, what we find are the foundational principles of the Kingdom of God that when laid in our lives will help us to walk in intimacy and enter into the mystery of the divine presence. We're talking about the Mishkan, which is the Hebrew word for sanctuary or Tabernacle. I hope you've been with me on the other episodes in this series. If not, you can go back and watch them. These are principles that when they're laid in our soul and we're walking them out, it will bring us into fellowship with our Creator.

I'm not going to take time today to cover a bunch of old material. I want to move straight away now into the next object in the Holy Place. Once again, we're inside the Holy Place. The only light inside the Holy Place was the light that was being given from the seven-tiered holy Menorah that was burning continually. It's a supernatural projection of the Holy Spirit. As the Holy Spirit was projecting in that holy place, what did the priest see?

The priest saw two other sacred pieces of furniture. The first thing he saw was the table of showbread and the second thing he saw was the Altar of Incense. Again, the Lord said to Moses, "I want you to build me this sanctuary that I might dwell with you exactly according to the pattern that I'm showing you." We need to take very seriously the fact that these two objects we're going to study were in the sacred meeting place between Yah and His people. Yah is actually an abbreviated form of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible. We know that God's sacred name is Yahweh, but at times He's also referred to as Yah.

As the Holy Spirit was projecting light into the Holy Place, what did the priest see in addition to the Menorah? The first thing they saw was the table of showbread. The table of showbread contained 12 loaves of bread, and each loaf symbolized one of the tribes of Israel. There was a loaf for each one of the 12 tribes. It symbolized that the Father was continually looking upon Israel, His chosen people, day and night. The light of the Menorah never went out. Continually, the love of God was being poured forth on Israel. He saw them, He sees them, He loves them, He's with them, and that is the message for you and I.

God's love is continually being administered to our life. The light of the Sacred One never stops beaming, it never stops burning, it never stops shining, and it's always directed towards you and me. The love of God, the love of Hashem, the love of our Creator, surrounds our life continuously. I know it's easy to make a statement like that, and I know you've heard it before, but let's face it. There are times in life where we're hurting so bad we're wondering, "Lord, I know You love me, but if You love me so much, why did this happen?"

Take somebody out there hammering. They're hammering a nail and they miss the nail. The hammer goes down on their finger and they say, "Lord, You love me so much. Why did You let this happen?" Things happen that are tough. Not completely related to this, but it comes to mind. I was on a plane not long ago and I was really praying to the Lord. I was saying, "Lord, let me become so aware of Your Spirit inside me, of the fact that I live in Your Spirit. Because I'm in You, I live in victory over everything and all my circumstances in You. I've been raised with You and I'm seated with You in the heavenly places according to Your Word."

I had been meditating on those truths, affirming them, repeating them back to God. I'm sitting in the plane and all of a sudden, this baby a few rows behind me starts screaming and crying. It wasn't like a gentle thing. This baby was crying uncontrollably, as loud as this baby could cry, and it wouldn't stop. It was such a terrible thing. It was so loud and disruptive and caustic hearing it. I started to say, "Lord, You know I'm believing that I'm in You, but why is this affecting me so much? Lord, I'm talking about how because I'm in You, I can live in victory over all my emotions and over every circumstance. Yet, here I've got a baby two rows behind me screaming at the top of its lungs and it's really getting on my nerves."

I was struggling. The reason I bring that up is because sometimes we can assert biblical truth, like "God loves me." In the case I just mentioned, it was like, "God, because You're in me, I live in victory." But then when the rubber meets the road, sometimes we're brought into situations in life when it seems like things go wrong. We find ourselves in pain. Maybe we're sick. Maybe something happens to somebody in our family. Maybe our car breaks down driving home on a winter night. We think, "Lord, You love me, but why is this happening? Surely, God, if You can prevent a sparrow from falling to the ground, You could have prevented this."

That's where the challenge comes in. I want to encourage us. The next time something goes wrong in your life, the next time you find yourself in a situation that you can't explain that's hurting you or you're in pain, the next time that happens and it seems like God's not with you, let's take it as a challenge. We can say, "Lord, I don't know why this happens or why I'm in this situation or in this pain, why I'm suffering. But Father God, I'm going to believe and declare that You love me and that Your love and face is shining on me right now, even as it continually shone on the bread of presence inside the Tabernacle."

Let's take that as a personal challenge and test of our faith. As we make that declaration like Job did in the book of Job, all those terrible things were happening to him, but Job declared, "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him." Let's take that as a challenge. I know it's easier said than done. I'm even in fear and trembling saying it to you because I'm wondering how the Father is going to test me now in this. But we have to make a decision in the love of God that even when it seems like things have gone wrong, I'm going to believe You and trust in Your love. Father, I ask You to strengthen us each and every one of us right now to pass that test every single time, to declare Your love and Your faithfulness and to believe in it through the darkness.

Dustin Roberts: This is Discovering the Jewish Jesus, and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, we have a free gift for you. If you're battling heaviness or patterns that you just can't shake, it may be spiritual oppression. Don't wait for others to deliver you. Rabbi's free self-deliverance bundle includes a step-by-step PDF with scripture and an MP3 guide to help you close every door to the enemy and live free in Jesus. Get yours at myfreegift.com/freedom.

Guest (Male): All around the world, people are searching for truth and hope. That's why Rabbi has traveled to places like Haiti, Nigeria, and beyond, sharing the gospel and strengthening believers everywhere. Through powerful outreach events, lives are being transformed. But we can't do this without your prayers and without your financial support. So pray and donate today at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Now, here is Rabbi Schneider.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: The Bible tells us in the book of James that we should rejoice when we encounter various trials and tests. When we encounter these trials and tests and remain faithful to the Lord through them by affirming His love, by not losing faith, by clinging to Him, James tells us that we become mature and complete. We become strong and we break through.

Hashem loves us. I'm reading a little book right now. Hashem is the Hebrew way to speak of God. It literally means The Name. Ha is "the" and Shem is "name". Jewish people, as you know, they won't utter God's name composed of the four Hebrew letters Yud-Hey-Vav-Hey because they feel it's so sacred it shouldn't be spoken. They'll just refer to God as The Name. They won't say His name; they'll just say The Name. That is in Hebrew spoken of as Hashem, the name.

I'm reading this little book right now, this little paperback book. It's probably 50 pages and it looks almost like a kid made the cover of it. It just says, "Hashem loves me." It's a really simple book, but it's so precious. It's so childlike. If we know that, we've got everything we need. Hashem loves me. That's what the bread of presence, the bread of faces is all about.

Moving on now, what is the next piece of furniture that the priest saw inside the Holy Place as the flames of the golden Menorah lit the room? The next thing the priest saw was the Altar of Incense. The incense arose from the Altar of Incense inside the Holy Place, the meeting place between God and His people, the blueprint for how to walk with Him, the blueprint for how to stay connected to Him, the blueprint for having His presence around our life. What this tells us is to walk in the fullness that we're looking for, we need to live in a continual state of prayer because the incense was continually burning.

A lot of people when they think of prayer, they think of it as a separate thing. Like, "Okay, I'm going to go pray now," or "Okay, I'm going to go there to pray." That's fine, that's a good thing. But prayer needs to move beyond a certain time of day or going to a certain place. The prayer of the believer needs to be a continual dialogue with God. That's why the Brit Hadashah, the New Testament, tells us to pray continually.

How do you live in a state of prayer? Again, the Tabernacle shows us how to walk with God. One of the pieces inside the Holy Place was the Altar of Incense. Incense represents prayer. We read this in the book of Psalms, we read this in other places in scripture. Incense in the Bible is symbolic of prayer. The incense is a fragrant aroma ascending unto the Lord. You and I, when we talk to God, when we share our life with God, that is a pleasing fragrance to Him because this is what He desires. He desires that we would give Him our life.

How can we give Him our heart? How can we give Him our emotions? How can we really open ourselves up to Him to merge with Him unless we're talking with Him continually? When I say continually, that might sound like a real big burden to some of you. How do I do that? But let me just begin here. What is prayer? At the most basic level, prayer is simply a reaching out to Hashem, a reaching out to God.

Prayer doesn't have to always be even out loud. If you're reaching out to God in your thoughts, in your heart, or if you're speaking to Him out loud, whenever you're reaching out to Him, that is prayer. Yeshua, when He was praying to the Father, He didn't always pray out loud. How do we know this? Because before He raised Lazarus from the dead, He lifted His eyes to the Father and He said, "Father, I'm saying this out loud for the people that are around me." He said, "I know that You always hear Me."

In other words, Yeshua was revealing that He didn't need to be speaking something out loud to know that the Father heard Him and that He was in communication with the Lord. He had that internal awareness from His heart when He was in communication with the Lord. Prayer doesn't always have to be out loud. Whenever you're reaching out, you're in a state of prayer.

Consider this as we're getting ready to wind up today. That Altar of Incense inside the Tabernacle, the smoke that was arising from it, it went straight up. If you took the Altar of Incense outside of the Holy Place, the smoke wouldn't go straight up. It would go wherever the wind was blowing. If the wind was blowing north, the smoke would go north. If the wind was blowing south, it would go south. It would be moved by the wind.

But inside the Mishkan, there was no wind because it was completely enclosed from the world outside of it. The smoke went straight up. What does this tell us? That when we're praying, our prayers should go straight up. They should be authentic. They should be genuine. They should be clear. What would it look like if my prayer wasn't straight up? Here is an example.

Sometimes people pray when they're in a group of people and their focus really isn't on the Lord. Their focus is on the people that are around them that are hearing them pray. Sometimes people, when they're praying in a group, they're more focused on impressing the people around them than they are really praying to the Lord. So the first thing is, if your prayer is going to go straight up, it needs to be focused on the Lord. Then it needs to be genuine with you in your own heart. Are you saying what's really in your heart, or are you just praying "Christianity"? What I mean by that is the culture of religion that we've picked up sometimes. Some of it's helpful, some of it's not.

We don't have to speak to the Lord in "thees" and "thous." "O gracious holy heavenly Father." Maybe that's not the most authentic way in your heart to pray. I'm not saying it's wrong, but He doesn't have to always be referred to as "Thou holy master." Speak with Him authentically from your heart. That's prayer that goes straight up.

Then lastly, prayer that goes straight up is prayer that's prayed according to His will. The scripture tells us sometimes we ask and we don't receive because we ask amiss with wrong motives. We're asking God for things sometimes that aren't really His will for our life. But the scripture tells us that if we ask Him for anything according to His will, we can have the confidence that He hears us and that our prayers are granted.

We should pray in a way realizing that we don't have to be in a formal setting. It doesn't have to be at a place or a certain time. It's a continual dialogue with God. It's talking to God about everything. It's sharing our life with Him. It's involving Him in all our decisions. We continually are talking and dialoguing with God all day long. Then it's praying to the Father in an authentic way, desiring the right things. Jesus said, "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." Make our prayer about God's purposes, about His glory, about His will, about the things that He desires for our life. "Thy kingdom come," Jesus said. Pray in this way. "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

When Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to make it first about the Father, about His glory, about His purposes being perfected in our lives. Then lastly, we should include in our prayer a spirit and a sense of thankfulness for all that God has already done and who He is. That's why the scripture says, "Let all your requests be made known unto God with thanksgiving." Let's take that step of faith when we're praying to God by ending our prayers by being thankful. "Father, thank You that You're faithful. Thank You that You hear me. I break off the spirit of doubt. Satan, I break you off my life. Father, I thank You for loving me and drawing me into Your precious holy light."

By the grace of God, Cynthia and I together are a really strong team, and our anointing and gifting is almost opposite of each other. I'm really good up in the air, a visionary, big concept person. Cynthia is really gifted on the ground. For example, if we're traveling somewhere in our automobile, I'll be completely lost, but Cynthia has a great sense of direction and can navigate us to get wherever we're going.

I say that to say I'm a big concept person. One of the things that I realize is that in the spirit, in order to grow and to be released in the goodness of God, we need to stretch ourselves and do what feels unnatural. This is why Jesus said even sinners love their friends. He said, "I'm calling you to go beyond that. I'm calling you to stretch yourself and love your enemies." This pertains even to our finances. We need to stretch ourselves and honor the Lord with our finances. We need to let go and let God. Will you do that in your life?

Dustin Roberts: Amen. Friends, if the Lord is calling you to join with Discovering the Jewish Jesus today, give your gift online at discoveringthejewishjesus.com or call 800-777-7835. We're so thankful for every gift that comes in because it's your faithfulness that keeps this program on the air. As our way of saying thank you, when you give, we'll send you our current newsletter. It's full of ministry updates and powerful listener testimonies and so much more.

Before we wrap up today, I want to tell you about Rabbi's brand new book that goes with this series you just heard, *The Mystery of the Tabernacle*. The ancient Tabernacle, the Mishkan in Hebrew, the one that God designed down to the last detail, it's a step-by-step guide for drawing closer to the Father. Rabbi takes you all the way from the very beginning of the Tabernacle, from the door, the outer court, into the Holy Place, and then into the Holy of Holies. He'll show you what each item means for your life right now.

It's not just a history lesson. I believe it's a life-changing encounter that's waiting to happen. So much of what we see in the Tabernacle was a foreshadowing of Jesus' sacrifice and how we can now be in relationship with God through Him. When we understand the Tabernacle, we can understand how to enter into the Lord's presence. If you want to pick up your copy of *The Mystery of the Tabernacle*, go to our website discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Now, here is Rabbi to sing the Aaronic Blessing in Hebrew and then speak it over your life in English.

Rabbi K.A. Schneider: What I love about the Aaronic Blessing is that it did not originate with man. The words actually proceeded from the very essence of God Himself. The blessing comes from the book of Numbers chapter 6. Listen to these words and receive the blessing of the Lord into your life today.

[Singing the Aaronic Blessing in Hebrew]

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: I'm your host, Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Be sure to join us again tomorrow when Rabbi Schneider shares the joy of Pentecost. That's coming up Friday, right here on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.