December 17, 2025 • 40 mins
A persecutor becomes a herald of grace, and the catalyst for change was not better teaching but a blazing revelation of Jesus Christ. We walk through Paul’s story—from Saul’s elite training and fierce zeal to the Light on the Damascus road—and then step into the silence of Arabia, where God dismantled a lifetime of tradition and rebuilt a life in the Spirit. Along the way, we explore what wilderness can do for us: expose idols, retrain the conscience through meditation, and make room for a new identity that cannot coexist with the old.
I share how surrender gets tangible when love confronts what we cling to; for me it was getting rid of comics because it held a piece of my heart. That concrete act set up a deeper lesson in Romans 8: the law is holy, but we are weak; the Spirit is present, and He is strong. We trace the move from schoolmaster to sonship, from duty to delight, and from obligation to the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. If you’ve ever tried to white-knuckle your way into holiness, you’ll hear why revelation, repentance, and the Spirit’s indwelling presence are the nonnegotiables of real transformation.
You’ll leave with a simple framework to practice today: seek revelation in Scripture, embrace your Arabia of quiet and wrestling, meditate to train your conscience, walk by the Spirit’s guidance, and act against your idols with decisive steps. This is a candid, practical, and hope-filled invitation to become who God calls you to be—free, focused, and led by His voice. What’s your Arabia, and what idol is God asking you to lay down?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
j - Jesus M. Ruiz (00:03):
The vision received was that of blood cells
traveling throughout the body,supplying the much-needed oxygen
and other nutrients to thediffering members of the body to
fulfill their purpose.
Once the blood cells are spent,they must return back to the
heart to be refilled beforebeing sent out again and fulfill
their purpose.
(00:31):
Y'all hear that?
That's that bee.
I've been hearing that bee fora couple weeks now.
And I want to share with youthe bee that's in my bonnet.
Because the Lord has been thatbee to me for a couple weeks
now, and it's actually that'snot his fault, but Elder John
has something to do with thisbecause he asked a question at
some point, and it just stirredme up in my spirit, and I told
(00:54):
him about it during our AWCFconference.
And today, I want to share withyou something that's on my
heart that I hope will challengeyou in a way that maybe you
haven't been challenged.
I'm not here to put anybody onthe spot, but I am here to be a
mouthpiece of the Lord andlet Him put you on the spot in
your own heart and question someof the things that you've said
(01:16):
or that you've done or thatyou've experienced or even the
things that you believe in.
But a lot of it has to do withPaul, and I've been meditating a
lot on Paul's life and wherePaul was and where he ended up
in.
And if you will, can you turnto Galatians 1, verse 11?
Paul was speaking to theGalatians, and he said something
(01:43):
very interesting, very, veryprofound about the gospel that
he preached.
He says, but I certify you,brethren, that the gospel which
(02:04):
was preached of me is not afterman.
For I neither received it ofman, neither was I taught it.
And what I feel I'm sharingwith you today is not so much a
teaching.
I feel like what I'm gonna dofor the next hour or so is sort
of share with you things thatsort of can't be taught to you.
(02:27):
You simply have to experiencethem.
And Paul said that this gospelthat I preach was not taught to
me of man, but by the revelationof Jesus Christ.
For ye have heard of myconversation in time past in the
Jews' religion, how that beyondmeasure I persecuted the church
(02:49):
of God and I wasted it, andprofited in the Jews' religion
above many my equals in mine ownnation, being more exceedingly
zealous of the traditions of myfathers.
But when it pleased God whoseparated me from my mother's
womb and called me by his graceto reveal his son in me, that I
(03:11):
might preach him among theheathen, immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood.
Neither went I up to Jerusalemto them which were apostles
before me, but I went intoArabia and returned again unto
Damascus.
Then after three years I wentup to Jerusalem to see Peter and
(03:34):
abode with him fifteen days,but other of the disciples saw I
none save James, the Lord'sbrother.
And I read this text and Ibegin to meditate on the word,
and I begin to think, My God,how in the world did Paul, or
excuse me, let's start with whohe was originally.
He was Saul of Tarsus.
(03:57):
He was a Pharisee, he was a sonof a Pharisee.
How did he get such zeal forthe Christian faith that he
previously persecuted?
Have you ever just sat down,sat back, and thought about Saul
became a Christian?
You see, when scholars havewritten about the life of Saul,
(04:20):
that if he was a Pharisee andhis father was a Pharisee, most
likely he began his training inthe house.
His father taught him what itwas to be a Pharisee, and then
when he probably turned around13, that's when they thought
Jews, the boys became men, hethen began into rigorous
(04:41):
Phariseeal training.
And in the Jewish culture, whenthe children were considered to
be men, and they went throughthis rigorous Phariseaical
training, they began to memorizelarge portions of scripture.
They began to memorize thewhole Torah, the first five
books of the Bible, word forword.
(05:03):
And they would have to copy itdown and write it like scribes
would have to write the word andcopy it down, and they couldn't
make a mistake.
And this was his life.
20, maybe 30 years.
I don't know when hisconversion was.
But if he was a son of aPharisee and then went into
(05:26):
Pharisaical training, he musthave had to memorize the 613
laws in the Torah.
All 613.
And he had to disciplinehimself and fast from different
dietary laws.
He couldn't touch this andcouldn't touch that.
And he was very zealous forthat.
(05:47):
And he created a greatreputation for this.
And his reputation for thestrictness of the law and his
devotion to keeping it was wellknown in Jerusalem.
In fact, even by his ownadmission, he said, I was a
top-of-the-line Pharisee.
He didn't say it exactly likethat.
I'm paraphrasing, but if youlook at Philippians 3:5, he's
(06:11):
describing who he was.
And he said, I was circumcisedon the eighth day.
I was of the stock of Israel.
I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
He's sort of spouting how hewas a Jew of Jews.
He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
And as of touching the law, Iwas a Pharisee on top of being
(06:35):
Hebrews.
And concerning zeal, Ipersecuted.
I was all for my Phariseealupbringing.
To the extent that I would evenkill for what I was raised in.
Because it was by his ownadmission that Stephen was
(06:57):
stoned to death.
And he said, touching therighteousness which is in the
law, I'm blameless.
I was blameless.
I did everything I was requiredto do.
And so when you look at hispast and you come to see that
all of the natural accoladesthat you could garner, he got
(07:21):
that.
He was a Pharisee of Phariseesand son of a Pharisee.
And yet, truth be told, it wasonly natural.
There was nothing supernaturalabout Paul before the road on
Damascus.
And yet, Paul's life changed sodrastically.
(07:41):
How did this man come todeclare the kingdom of God with
such power and anointing andauthority?
Think of that.
Just meditate on that.
A lot of the teaching today isquestioning do you really
meditate on the word andconsider the deepness of the
(08:04):
ramifications of what Paul wentthrough?
To be on a road to Damascus andto see a light shining in his
eyes and to hear a voice and toimmediately know and recognize
that it was the Lord whom hethought he was serving.
But that same Lord said, Saul,Saul, why do you persecute me?
And yet he was persecuting thechurch, thinking that he
(08:28):
zealously served the God ofAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And yet he found out that hewas actually persecuting the God
whom he thought he loved?
I mean, I think of today whocould make such a drastic change
from a horrible previous lifeto being a Christian, and the
(08:51):
only person that I could thinkof that might be on measure with
Paul is Hitler.
Can you imagine Hitler doingeverything he did against the
Jews and allowing all of thisstuff to happen to then be
transformed into a zealousChristian?
Because that's what it was likefor Paul in his day.
(09:12):
He persecuted them, he jailedthem, he spoke ill of them
because he was a part of thePhariseeal training and it was
all he knew, and he thought itwas right.
Yet drastically, in one day, ina flash of light, his life
changed.
Profoundly changed.
(09:32):
How is that possible?
And the answer is within thesewords for I neither received the
gospel of man, neither was Itaught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ.
That is what changed, changedevery Christian's life in the
early church.
(09:52):
They had a revelation of JesusChrist.
Paul never met the man in theflesh.
He didn't walk with him forthree and a half years.
Yet something happened to himso profound that he ended up not
persecuting the church butsaving them and then bringing
the world into the Christianfaith as well.
(10:14):
There should be nothing moreprofound of an experience in
your life than an actualrevelation of Jesus Christ.
There's a song that the HillSong sings.
And it's become so popular, notbecause it's such a
(10:37):
well-written song, it's becauseit resonates in Christians
around the world.
It says, I will never be thesame again.
I can never return.
I've closed the door.
The glory of God has filled mylife, and I will never be the
(11:04):
same again.
No one can sing that song withsuch sincerity and genuine
unless they've had a revelationof Jesus Christ.
That's why it resonates withinChristians around the world.
Because they met him.
It wasn't something about theyread in a book, it wasn't
(11:26):
something that they were taught.
They had a revelation of JesusChrist.
But there's something else moreinteresting about Paul, and he
says it in verse 17.
He said, When I received thatrevelation of Jesus Christ, I
didn't go to the apostles beforeme in Jerusalem.
(11:50):
I didn't confer with them.
I didn't talk with them to seeif the experience that I had was
genuine.
It says I went to Arabia.
Now, if you've ever looked at amap, Damascus is a city about
(12:11):
right here.
And if you look west, and I'mdoing it in your perspective, if
you look west, it says ArabianDesert.
Why would Paul go to theArabian desert?
I can't tell you specificallywhat he experienced in the
(12:32):
Arabian desert.
I don't have any resources togo to.
There's nothing in thescriptures that would allow me
to say, this is what happened tohim.
This is what he learned.
There's no biblical scholarsthat can tell you through
research, this is what he wentthrough.
So I want you to allow me tospeculate.
(12:55):
And I'm going to try tospeculate and make it as
biblical as possible so that I'mnot stretching it like a rubber
band and watch it snap.
I want to stretch it so that itfits.
You see, in the old covenant,the wilderness is synonymous
with the desert.
Now, where were the Israelitescalled out of Egypt for?
(13:18):
To be delivered.
They were called out so thatthey could go worship him, they
were called out so they could goserve him.
And where did he call them outof Egypt?
Did they go right into thepromised land?
They went into the wilderness.
And what happened in thewilderness that was so profound
(13:40):
to them?
They first went to Mount Sinai.
What did they receive on MountSinai?
The law.
The law was written in tabletsof stone.
Yet all of that I'm speakinghere, I'm trying to show you
types and shadows so that I canmake a maybe a valid speculation
as to what Paul went throughwhen he went to Arabia because
(14:04):
he didn't go there for a day.
He went there for three years.
That's a long time.
Three years he went to thewilderness.
And what happened to theIsraelites in the wilderness of
spirit?
They got the law at MountSinai.
In the middle of the desert,when they were panting for
water, out of the rock flowedthe water that gave them to
(14:29):
drink.
And we know that they weresustained, even their clothing
did not wear out during all ofthat time.
But we know also that theIsraelites in the wilderness
from 20 years and up passedaway.
You see, while they were there,God was using this wilderness
(14:53):
experience to reveal himself tothem.
He tried to do that through thelaw.
He tried to do that through allthe manna coming down from
heaven.
He tried to do that as hebrought the water from the rock
to show them I'm your provider,I'm your sustainer.
Just live by my word.
I don't want you to have kings.
(15:13):
I want you to live by yourrelationship with me.
You to me got scared and theycame down and He always gave
them what He wanted.
Always gave the people whatthey wanted, but it's not
what He wanted.
So they went through thepromised land, and then many of
(15:34):
them passed away.
And so what God was using inthe wilderness was a place of
purification, a place of I needto renew my people because
they're a mixed multitude andthey walk in unbelief.
And I need to rid them of that,or they will never be able to
(15:56):
take the promised land that I'vegiven for them.
So I take it to the new cast.
Think of all those types andshadows, don't let them go.
But in the New Testament, whowas taken into the wilderness to
be tested for 40 days?
Christ.
And there he fasted, and therehe wrestled, not with God, but
(16:17):
he wrestled with Satan.
And he wrestled in the word, hewrestled in the spirit.
But after he got out of thewilderness, what was the first
thing that took place?
He went into a synagogue and heread the scrolls.
And what did he read that wasprophetic concerning him?
It says in Luke 4 (16:37):
18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me topreach the gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal thebrokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives andrecovering of the sight to the
blind, to set at liberty themthat are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord.
(16:58):
The Israelites went through it.
Jesus went through it.
And if they're an example untous, then we need to go through
it.
No one jumped over thewilderness over the desert.
They had to go through thedesert in order to get where God
(17:20):
wanted them to be.
Now, considering all of theseexamples that I've just uh
relayed to you, could Paul havepossibly, when he went to
Arabia, see tremendous amountsof revelation directly from God?
It's possible.
Could it have been a place forhim where God was purifying him
(17:44):
and removing the things that hehad learned?
It could have been a place ofrenewal because he was a
Pharisee.
You don't just let that go inone day.
You don't let that go in onemoment.
He'd been taught that all ofhis life.
He was an adult, maybe 30,maybe 40 years of age.
(18:06):
It says that he was probablyborn around zero uh uh BC.
That's about 40 years, maybe.
He had a lot of false teachingthat he had to get rid of.
God had to do somethingdifferent with him because he
was not taught right.
He was taught the traditions ofmen, and he was very zealous to
(18:29):
keep those traditions.
Although some of the traditionshad been from the word, they
were really simply traditions ofmen.
Consider that, because hecouldn't have just walked
zealously in the Christian faithwithout having dealt with that.
How much of our lives werehorrible and vile before we came
to the Lord, and they didn'tjust go away.
(18:50):
Our paradigm of thought, ourtemptations that we were weaken
before, and that we were justgoing before we knew the Lord,
we still struggle with themsometimes until the Lord really
delivers us, but it usuallydoesn't happen in a day.
So for me, Paul had to get ridof a lot of baggage, and I think
(19:15):
that's what Arabia was for.
And so for me, Arabiasymbolizes a place where it's
just you and God, and there iswhere you wrestle with God, like
Jacob wrestled with God beforehe met his brother again.
He was wrestling for ablessing, wrestling, and he
(19:38):
wrestled until he lost the hipin his socket and he stayed with
a limp for his life, but he hadto wrestle with God for a
blessing.
And I believe Paul was soimmersed in the Pharisaical
teaching that he had to wrestlewith God, like the Israelites
were wrestling with God withtheir murmuring.
(19:59):
And they're complaining andthey're questioning how we're
gonna do this, how are we gonnado that?
Let's go back to Egypt.
They wanted to go back toEgypt.
It was still in them.
They got out of Egypt, butEgypt was not removed from them
yet.
And they had to go through thewilderness to get it out of
(20:21):
them.
And so I believe Paul, like allof us, had to go through a
wilderness where you wrestlewith God.
You wrestle to let go of yourown understanding.
You wrestle to tear down theseidols that you yourself erected.
You need to tear them down.
If he is gonna be on the throneof your life, it must be you
(20:45):
that tears them down.
That's called repentance.
I turn away and I tear down thethings that I worshiped before
I met you.
And you have to wrestle withGod to give up anything that
challenges his authority in yourlife.
I can remember when I first methim, I you might not know this,
(21:11):
but I collected comics and Iwas totally immersed in comics,
and comics was like an idol tome because I would spend $20 to
$100 every week, no lie, and Iwould buy up all the comics and
I would spend my weekend readingall of the comics.
All of them.
By the time I really met theLord, I had chests in my room,
(21:33):
about four to five of 10,000comics in there.
And one of the things that Iwrestled with God was getting
rid of them.
And I threw 10,000 comics intothe garbage dumpster.
I didn't go sell them.
I threw them all away.
By the time I was collectingcomics, comics were not a
dollar, they weren't 50 cents,they were like a dollar, dollar
(21:54):
ninety five, two ninety five,three ninety five, four
ninety-five because they had allthese wonderful pages.
But I had to get rid of thatfrom my life.
And I wrestled with him for awhile, but I had a particular
individual in my life that spoketo me, and when he did it, I
knew it in my heart, and I hadto get rid of it, and I got rid
of it.
Music had to get rid of it.
(22:15):
There are things in your lifebefore you came to God that are
ingrained in you, and you feellike that is your sense of self,
but it is not.
It is not you.
It is what God needs to get ridof so you can become the you in
Him that you need to be.
There has to be points in yourlife where you are wrestling
(22:39):
with God to give up the thingsthat need to be given up in
order to move on with him.
Because otherwise, castingaside every burden, every
weight, it's gonna hold youback.
And you're not gonna be able togo out in a full run because
you're with this parachutebehind you, and it's holding you
back.
It's making you strong, butstrong in the flesh, but it's
(23:00):
holding you back.
And then we wrestle with him tobe silent.
Because we so much value ourown opinion, we so much value
our own experiences in the Lordthat we think that's the way it
has to be.
And so we talk and talk andtalk and talk and talk and talk
(23:23):
and talk and talk and talk andtalk to the Lord, and we never
shut up.
We never just be quiet, butlisten of me.
Learn of me, learn of my waysthat I may show you who I am.
And so that's my speculation.
(23:45):
Take it or leave it.
Years after this, Arabia andreceiving this revelation and
him ministering the gospel, hesays, Paul says to his spiritual
son in the ministry, he says,son, show your study and show
yourself the proved unto God,rightly dividing the word.
(24:10):
And so I want to take thisspiritual, experiential aspect.
I can only share with you.
I can't teach you how to do it.
I can only tell you that itmust be experienced.
And as you seek him, you willhave your unique experience with
the Lord.
But when it's all said anddone, it's gonna be very similar
(24:30):
to what many of the saints ofold experienced.
And you're gonna do some of thethings and give up some things,
maybe not give up comics.
Maybe that wasn't your vice.
Maybe your vice was somethingelse, but you have to learn to
give up things in order to moveon with God.
So he says to him, study, showyourself approved, rightly
(24:54):
dividing the word.
And see, this is our challenge.
I'm taking the spiritual, nowI'm going now to the natural.
I want to make it practical, Iwant to make it something you
can now put your hands on, butthe other stuff, you gotta seek
the Lord on it.
And in order to meet thischallenge, to study, to show
ourselves approved, practicinghow to rightly divide the word,
(25:16):
how do we rightly apply thisparticular word to our situation
or to his situation or hersituation, we've got to set
aside time to really dig intothe word.
Because many times in the oldcovenant, and I'll just bring up
three examples, he says,Blessed is the man whose delight
is in the law of the Lord, andin his law doth he do what?
(25:42):
Meditate day and night.
Meditate day and night on thelaw.
It says also, when I rememberthee upon my bed and meditate on
thee in the night watches.
That means while you're in yourbed or or you're standing on
the wall and you're you have thewatch of the night.
(26:05):
You're not just sitting therealmost trying to stay.
No, you're meditating on theLord.
You're meditating on him whenyou put your pillow down and you
go to bed and you talk with himand you meditate on the things
that he's taught you and howthey apply to you.
And he says, David says, I willmeditate upon thy precepts and
(26:28):
have respect unto thy ways.
Meditation is something thatmust be practiced by us.
We meditate.
For some of us who went tocollege who were really serious
about it, we meditated on thethings that were taught to us,
and that's how we got good atit.
(26:48):
That's how we studied and wememorized and we passed our
tests, and others, well, wereally didn't meditate on it, so
we passed with a C.
But for those of us that wereserious about school, we
meditated, and that's what itwas.
It was a study, it was it wasuh uh you thinking on it deeply,
not just superficially, notjust oh yeah, yeah, I heard
that, I remember something aboutthat.
It's you you really got intoit, especially if you liked it.
(27:12):
But it says in Joshua, thisbook of the law shall not depart
out of thy mouth.
The law, the words of the law,you will be speaking them at all
(27:35):
times.
Bible breath?
Any Bible breaths in here?
That's speaking the law out ofyour mouth, and some people kind
of get antsy with me onFacebook because I use a lot of
scriptures.
That's because the law is in mymouth.
I'm not trying to beimpressive, I'm not trying to
(27:55):
no, I'm trying to use the wordto apply it to that situation,
but we've always got to be doingthat, and you will meditate on
the law day and night.
Why?
Because back then, when youmeditated on the law and your
parents were constantly teachingyou, constantly teaching you
(28:16):
about the law, why did they dothat?
Because they wanted you toobserve it and do it.
It was all about obeying it,not just simply memorizing it.
It was actually doing it.
That was the purpose of yourmeditation so that you learn to
do it.
For then, only then, when youdo the law, is when you make
(28:40):
your way prosperous, and thenyou'll have good success.
You see, in the old covenant,meditating on the law was
considering it deeply, notsuperficially.
It's dwelling on what did theLord say?
How do I apply that to my life?
(29:02):
How do I do that?
Well, I don't do that, okay.
The purpose of all of thismeditation is to train your
conscience.
Because a lot of you had anupbringing that wasn't quite
right in the Lord, and yourconscience is trained to think
(29:22):
certain things that are actuallywrong, but because you've
always done it in your life andyou never told it was wrong,
your conscience actually thinksit was right.
But you need to train yourconscience in the word, and then
you receive new conviction, andthen you start renewing your
mind, and then you start walkingdifferently.
(29:45):
But it doesn't happen byreading the word and saying,
Yeah, I read chapter one.
It's about meditation, lettingit sink in, and not hear a word,
oh yeah, that applies to sisterso-and-so, or brother.
No, you missed it because itapplied to you a lot.
(30:06):
We always thinking about how itapplies to somebody, we don't
realize that it applies to us.
So the purpose of all of thismeditation is to train our
consciences, and this is what iscalled in the new covenant,
renewing the mind, so that wemay observe and obey his word.
But if that's all we do, ifthat's all we do, study, study,
(30:31):
study, study, we will never belifted off of this natural realm
into walking it in the spirit.
It'll just be an obligatoryobedience.
And although obedience isbetter than sacrifice, when you
obey with a willful heart ratherthan a begrudging heart, who do
you think he's gonna be morepleased with?
(30:52):
He's gonna be pleased with theone that was a cheerful giver,
that cheerfully obeyed, and notjust begrudgingly, you know?
So in Romans 8, Paul teaches usof some very powerful things.
He teaches that the law couldnot fulfill righteousness in us.
(31:18):
Why?
Because the law is weak throughour flesh.
If we tried our best from theday we were born to walk in the
law as he spoke it, wrote it, wewould fail.
(31:38):
It was inevitable.
Every human being on earth hasdecided to walk contrary to the
law, except one.
And so if I'm going to walk inthis law, it doesn't come by
meditation.
I must be raised up into ahigher level, into another realm
(32:02):
of existence.
And Paul goes on to teach inRomans 8 that there is now a law
of the spirit of life in ChristJesus.
And it is this law that hasfreed us from the law of sin and
death.
This law of the spirit of lifein Christ Jesus, not the old
(32:25):
one, this one freed me from thelaw of sin and death.
Have you meditated sufficientlyon that one?
Have you thought about thatreal deeply?
Because some of us strugglewith our little vices, and we're
struggling because we have notlearned the new law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus,which frees us from the law of
(32:49):
sin and death.
You see, in the law, inherentin the law was righteousness.
There's nothing wrong with thelaw, the law is perfect.
Don't steal, don't murder,worship the Lord your God, and
him only will you serve?
Honor your father and mother.
All of that's good.
All of that's perfect.
There's nothing wrong with thelaw.
(33:10):
It's us.
And I cannot fulfill the law inthe flesh.
And so I've got to learn well,what is this law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus?
Because that's what's freeingme from sin and death in the new
covenant.
So our meditation is not merelyon the law of the old covenant.
(33:32):
Anybody know what the purposeof the law of the old covenant
was?
Interestingly enough, Paulspeaks of this as well.
Bishop Harris was about toanswer.
I'm like, you know, you know.
The purpose of the law of theold covenant was, you can turn
(33:54):
there.
Galatians 3, verse 24.
You can write that in yournotes.
The purpose of the law in theold covenant was to bring us
unto Christ.
Yeah, it taught us what to do.
Yeah, it taught us what not todo, but in my flesh, I can't
(34:15):
even do it anyway.
So it's supposed to drive me,it was supposed to push me in
the direction of where I needyou, Jesus.
I need you.
And it's what we try to teachour own children as we raise
them up and have themunderstand.
Do you see what's in yourheart?
Do you see what's in yourheart?
(34:36):
And not focus so much on the onwhere the parts where they
fail, but we acknowledge them.
But that is supposed to driveyou into I want a relationship
with Christ because I can't dothis alone.
I can't do this by myself.
Without Jesus, we can donothing.
He said the law was ourschoolmaster, it was our
(35:04):
teacher.
It brought us to Christ.
After failure, failure, afterfailure, after failure, all I
want to do is be freed from thisand know Christ.
Because I can't do it on myown.
And then look at what it says: that we might be justified, (35:21):
undefined
never sinned by faith.
By faith in Jesus.
But after that faith is come,we're no longer under a
schoolmaster.
I'm no longer under the law.
Not to say that the law waswrong, but to say that if I'm
(35:42):
going to be justified, is nowgoing to be justified by faith
in him.
He's going to justify me,whereas I could not justify
myself.
For ye are children of God byfaith in Christ Jesus.
You see, our relationship withour Father or Christ as children
(36:05):
is not through the knowledge ofhim.
Our relationship is Christ aschildren is not because we know
he exists.
It is by faith in him, inknowing him.
It did not come through theknowledge of the law.
(36:28):
So I say again, our meditationshould not merely be on the law,
but on him whom the law was tobring us unto Jesus Christ.
There's a difference therebetween just knowing the law for
the sake of knowing it andknowing him through the law.
(36:52):
That's why it is so importantthat you inherit the indwelling
spirit of Christ.
I cannot separate the two andsay, I have faith in him, yet I
have not his spirit.
Paul says, Ye are not in theflesh.
(37:13):
I'm back in Romans 8.
Ye are not in the flesh, but inthe spirit, big if.
If the spirit of God dwells.
So I'm asking you, is theSpirit of God in you?
Because if it is, then you haveaccess to being in the Spirit.
(37:35):
If you don't, you don't havethat access.
I all I can do is question you.
You figure that out.
You'll know if you measure yourlife experiences with the word
and what it teaches us toreceive the spirit.
Now, if any man have not thespirit of Christ, he is none of
(37:57):
his.
So here I say again that it wasnot the knowledge of the law
that established yourrelationship to God.
It was your knowledge of him.
It was you knowing him, and byfaith in him, through the Spirit
of life that indwells us, wenow have relationship with him.
(38:20):
We now have our being, we haveour identity, we are the
children of God.
Because Paul goes on to say,right at that end of Romans 8,
for as many as are led by theSpirit of God, they are the sons
of God.
So when I say by faith, well,yeah, but if you don't have the
(38:45):
Spirit and all you're doing isbelieving, yeah, that God
exists, and yeah, the third day,that's all fine and dandy.
But you need to have thatrelationship with him because it
is by the Spirit that you wereas a child of God.
So if the scriptures tell usthat we should be meditating on
the law of the Lord andmeditating, considering deeply
(39:06):
his commandments and his ways,not merely focusing on the word,
it's meditating on him throughthe eyes of the word.
That's where our meditationshould be.
Our meditation in the newcovenant that we live in is to
(39:27):
consider deeply what it means towalk in the spirit.
If you were blessed andappreciate listening to this
podcast, and you would like tosupport us in our efforts,
consider lifting us up in prayerfirst.
Then remember these four socialmedia buzzwords share, like,
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(39:48):
Share this podcast link withsomeone else by text, email, or
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Subscribe to support the showmonetarily with the link in our
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Follow us on all our socialmedia platforms.
May God bless you and make youprosperous in Him as you listen
(40:12):
and obey His voice.
The vision received was that of blood cells
traveling throughout the body,supplying the much-needed oxygen
and other nutrients to thediffering members of the body to
fulfill their purpose.
Once the blood cells are spent,they must return back to the
heart to be refilled beforebeing sent out again and fulfill
their purpose.
(00:31):
Y'all hear that?
That's that bee.
I've been hearing that bee fora couple weeks now.
And I want to share with youthe bee that's in my bonnet.
Because the Lord has been thatbee to me for a couple weeks
now, and it's actually that'snot his fault, but Elder John
has something to do with thisbecause he asked a question at
some point, and it just stirredme up in my spirit, and I told
(00:54):
him about it during our AWCFconference.
And today, I want to share withyou something that's on my
heart that I hope will challengeyou in a way that maybe you
haven't been challenged.
I'm not here to put anybody onthe spot, but I am here to be a
mouthpiece of the Lord andlet Him put you on the spot in
your own heart and question someof the things that you've said
(01:16):
or that you've done or thatyou've experienced or even the
things that you believe in.
But a lot of it has to do withPaul, and I've been meditating a
lot on Paul's life and wherePaul was and where he ended up
in.
And if you will, can you turnto Galatians 1, verse 11?
Paul was speaking to theGalatians, and he said something
(01:43):
very interesting, very, veryprofound about the gospel that
he preached.
He says, but I certify you,brethren, that the gospel which
(02:04):
was preached of me is not afterman.
For I neither received it ofman, neither was I taught it.
And what I feel I'm sharingwith you today is not so much a
teaching.
I feel like what I'm gonna dofor the next hour or so is sort
of share with you things thatsort of can't be taught to you.
(02:27):
You simply have to experiencethem.
And Paul said that this gospelthat I preach was not taught to
me of man, but by the revelationof Jesus Christ.
For ye have heard of myconversation in time past in the
Jews' religion, how that beyondmeasure I persecuted the church
(02:49):
of God and I wasted it, andprofited in the Jews' religion
above many my equals in mine ownnation, being more exceedingly
zealous of the traditions of myfathers.
But when it pleased God whoseparated me from my mother's
womb and called me by his graceto reveal his son in me, that I
(03:11):
might preach him among theheathen, immediately I conferred
not with flesh and blood.
Neither went I up to Jerusalemto them which were apostles
before me, but I went intoArabia and returned again unto
Damascus.
Then after three years I wentup to Jerusalem to see Peter and
(03:34):
abode with him fifteen days,but other of the disciples saw I
none save James, the Lord'sbrother.
And I read this text and Ibegin to meditate on the word,
and I begin to think, My God,how in the world did Paul, or
excuse me, let's start with whohe was originally.
He was Saul of Tarsus.
(03:57):
He was a Pharisee, he was a sonof a Pharisee.
How did he get such zeal forthe Christian faith that he
previously persecuted?
Have you ever just sat down,sat back, and thought about Saul
became a Christian?
You see, when scholars havewritten about the life of Saul,
(04:20):
that if he was a Pharisee andhis father was a Pharisee, most
likely he began his training inthe house.
His father taught him what itwas to be a Pharisee, and then
when he probably turned around13, that's when they thought
Jews, the boys became men, hethen began into rigorous
(04:41):
Phariseeal training.
And in the Jewish culture, whenthe children were considered to
be men, and they went throughthis rigorous Phariseaical
training, they began to memorizelarge portions of scripture.
They began to memorize thewhole Torah, the first five
books of the Bible, word forword.
(05:03):
And they would have to copy itdown and write it like scribes
would have to write the word andcopy it down, and they couldn't
make a mistake.
And this was his life.
20, maybe 30 years.
I don't know when hisconversion was.
But if he was a son of aPharisee and then went into
(05:26):
Pharisaical training, he musthave had to memorize the 613
laws in the Torah.
All 613.
And he had to disciplinehimself and fast from different
dietary laws.
He couldn't touch this andcouldn't touch that.
And he was very zealous forthat.
(05:47):
And he created a greatreputation for this.
And his reputation for thestrictness of the law and his
devotion to keeping it was wellknown in Jerusalem.
In fact, even by his ownadmission, he said, I was a
top-of-the-line Pharisee.
He didn't say it exactly likethat.
I'm paraphrasing, but if youlook at Philippians 3:5, he's
(06:11):
describing who he was.
And he said, I was circumcisedon the eighth day.
I was of the stock of Israel.
I was of the tribe of Benjamin.
He's sort of spouting how hewas a Jew of Jews.
He was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
And as of touching the law, Iwas a Pharisee on top of being
(06:35):
Hebrews.
And concerning zeal, Ipersecuted.
I was all for my Phariseealupbringing.
To the extent that I would evenkill for what I was raised in.
Because it was by his ownadmission that Stephen was
(06:57):
stoned to death.
And he said, touching therighteousness which is in the
law, I'm blameless.
I was blameless.
I did everything I was requiredto do.
And so when you look at hispast and you come to see that
all of the natural accoladesthat you could garner, he got
(07:21):
that.
He was a Pharisee of Phariseesand son of a Pharisee.
And yet, truth be told, it wasonly natural.
There was nothing supernaturalabout Paul before the road on
Damascus.
And yet, Paul's life changed sodrastically.
(07:41):
How did this man come todeclare the kingdom of God with
such power and anointing andauthority?
Think of that.
Just meditate on that.
A lot of the teaching today isquestioning do you really
meditate on the word andconsider the deepness of the
(08:04):
ramifications of what Paul wentthrough?
To be on a road to Damascus andto see a light shining in his
eyes and to hear a voice and toimmediately know and recognize
that it was the Lord whom hethought he was serving.
But that same Lord said, Saul,Saul, why do you persecute me?
And yet he was persecuting thechurch, thinking that he
(08:28):
zealously served the God ofAbraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And yet he found out that hewas actually persecuting the God
whom he thought he loved?
I mean, I think of today whocould make such a drastic change
from a horrible previous lifeto being a Christian, and the
(08:51):
only person that I could thinkof that might be on measure with
Paul is Hitler.
Can you imagine Hitler doingeverything he did against the
Jews and allowing all of thisstuff to happen to then be
transformed into a zealousChristian?
Because that's what it was likefor Paul in his day.
(09:12):
He persecuted them, he jailedthem, he spoke ill of them
because he was a part of thePhariseeal training and it was
all he knew, and he thought itwas right.
Yet drastically, in one day, ina flash of light, his life
changed.
Profoundly changed.
(09:32):
How is that possible?
And the answer is within thesewords for I neither received the
gospel of man, neither was Itaught it, but by the revelation
of Jesus Christ.
That is what changed, changedevery Christian's life in the
early church.
(09:52):
They had a revelation of JesusChrist.
Paul never met the man in theflesh.
He didn't walk with him forthree and a half years.
Yet something happened to himso profound that he ended up not
persecuting the church butsaving them and then bringing
the world into the Christianfaith as well.
(10:14):
There should be nothing moreprofound of an experience in
your life than an actualrevelation of Jesus Christ.
There's a song that the HillSong sings.
And it's become so popular, notbecause it's such a
(10:37):
well-written song, it's becauseit resonates in Christians
around the world.
It says, I will never be thesame again.
I can never return.
I've closed the door.
The glory of God has filled mylife, and I will never be the
(11:04):
same again.
No one can sing that song withsuch sincerity and genuine
unless they've had a revelationof Jesus Christ.
That's why it resonates withinChristians around the world.
Because they met him.
It wasn't something about theyread in a book, it wasn't
(11:26):
something that they were taught.
They had a revelation of JesusChrist.
But there's something else moreinteresting about Paul, and he
says it in verse 17.
He said, When I received thatrevelation of Jesus Christ, I
didn't go to the apostles beforeme in Jerusalem.
(11:50):
I didn't confer with them.
I didn't talk with them to seeif the experience that I had was
genuine.
It says I went to Arabia.
Now, if you've ever looked at amap, Damascus is a city about
(12:11):
right here.
And if you look west, and I'mdoing it in your perspective, if
you look west, it says ArabianDesert.
Why would Paul go to theArabian desert?
I can't tell you specificallywhat he experienced in the
(12:32):
Arabian desert.
I don't have any resources togo to.
There's nothing in thescriptures that would allow me
to say, this is what happened tohim.
This is what he learned.
There's no biblical scholarsthat can tell you through
research, this is what he wentthrough.
So I want you to allow me tospeculate.
(12:55):
And I'm going to try tospeculate and make it as
biblical as possible so that I'mnot stretching it like a rubber
band and watch it snap.
I want to stretch it so that itfits.
You see, in the old covenant,the wilderness is synonymous
with the desert.
Now, where were the Israelitescalled out of Egypt for?
(13:18):
To be delivered.
They were called out so thatthey could go worship him, they
were called out so they could goserve him.
And where did he call them outof Egypt?
Did they go right into thepromised land?
They went into the wilderness.
And what happened in thewilderness that was so profound
(13:40):
to them?
They first went to Mount Sinai.
What did they receive on MountSinai?
The law.
The law was written in tabletsof stone.
Yet all of that I'm speakinghere, I'm trying to show you
types and shadows so that I canmake a maybe a valid speculation
as to what Paul went throughwhen he went to Arabia because
(14:04):
he didn't go there for a day.
He went there for three years.
That's a long time.
Three years he went to thewilderness.
And what happened to theIsraelites in the wilderness of
spirit?
They got the law at MountSinai.
In the middle of the desert,when they were panting for
water, out of the rock flowedthe water that gave them to
(14:29):
drink.
And we know that they weresustained, even their clothing
did not wear out during all ofthat time.
But we know also that theIsraelites in the wilderness
from 20 years and up passedaway.
You see, while they were there,God was using this wilderness
(14:53):
experience to reveal himself tothem.
He tried to do that through thelaw.
He tried to do that through allthe manna coming down from
heaven.
He tried to do that as hebrought the water from the rock
to show them I'm your provider,I'm your sustainer.
Just live by my word.
I don't want you to have kings.
(15:13):
I want you to live by yourrelationship with me.
You to me got scared and theycame down and He always gave
them what He wanted.
Always gave the people whatthey wanted, but it's not
what He wanted.
So they went through thepromised land, and then many of
(15:34):
them passed away.
And so what God was using inthe wilderness was a place of
purification, a place of I needto renew my people because
they're a mixed multitude andthey walk in unbelief.
And I need to rid them of that,or they will never be able to
(15:56):
take the promised land that I'vegiven for them.
So I take it to the new cast.
Think of all those types andshadows, don't let them go.
But in the New Testament, whowas taken into the wilderness to
be tested for 40 days?
Christ.
And there he fasted, and therehe wrestled, not with God, but
(16:17):
he wrestled with Satan.
And he wrestled in the word, hewrestled in the spirit.
But after he got out of thewilderness, what was the first
thing that took place?
He went into a synagogue and heread the scrolls.
And what did he read that wasprophetic concerning him?
It says in Luke 4 (16:37):
18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he hath anointed me topreach the gospel to the poor.
He hath sent me to heal thebrokenhearted, to preach
deliverance to the captives andrecovering of the sight to the
blind, to set at liberty themthat are bruised, to preach the
acceptable year of the Lord.
(16:58):
The Israelites went through it.
Jesus went through it.
And if they're an example untous, then we need to go through
it.
No one jumped over thewilderness over the desert.
They had to go through thedesert in order to get where God
(17:20):
wanted them to be.
Now, considering all of theseexamples that I've just uh
relayed to you, could Paul havepossibly, when he went to
Arabia, see tremendous amountsof revelation directly from God?
It's possible.
Could it have been a place forhim where God was purifying him
(17:44):
and removing the things that hehad learned?
It could have been a place ofrenewal because he was a
Pharisee.
You don't just let that go inone day.
You don't let that go in onemoment.
He'd been taught that all ofhis life.
He was an adult, maybe 30,maybe 40 years of age.
(18:06):
It says that he was probablyborn around zero uh uh BC.
That's about 40 years, maybe.
He had a lot of false teachingthat he had to get rid of.
God had to do somethingdifferent with him because he
was not taught right.
He was taught the traditions ofmen, and he was very zealous to
(18:29):
keep those traditions.
Although some of the traditionshad been from the word, they
were really simply traditions ofmen.
Consider that, because hecouldn't have just walked
zealously in the Christian faithwithout having dealt with that.
How much of our lives werehorrible and vile before we came
to the Lord, and they didn'tjust go away.
(18:50):
Our paradigm of thought, ourtemptations that we were weaken
before, and that we were justgoing before we knew the Lord,
we still struggle with themsometimes until the Lord really
delivers us, but it usuallydoesn't happen in a day.
So for me, Paul had to get ridof a lot of baggage, and I think
(19:15):
that's what Arabia was for.
And so for me, Arabiasymbolizes a place where it's
just you and God, and there iswhere you wrestle with God, like
Jacob wrestled with God beforehe met his brother again.
He was wrestling for ablessing, wrestling, and he
(19:38):
wrestled until he lost the hipin his socket and he stayed with
a limp for his life, but he hadto wrestle with God for a
blessing.
And I believe Paul was soimmersed in the Pharisaical
teaching that he had to wrestlewith God, like the Israelites
were wrestling with God withtheir murmuring.
(19:59):
And they're complaining andthey're questioning how we're
gonna do this, how are we gonnado that?
Let's go back to Egypt.
They wanted to go back toEgypt.
It was still in them.
They got out of Egypt, butEgypt was not removed from them
yet.
And they had to go through thewilderness to get it out of
(20:21):
them.
And so I believe Paul, like allof us, had to go through a
wilderness where you wrestlewith God.
You wrestle to let go of yourown understanding.
You wrestle to tear down theseidols that you yourself erected.
You need to tear them down.
If he is gonna be on the throneof your life, it must be you
(20:45):
that tears them down.
That's called repentance.
I turn away and I tear down thethings that I worshiped before
I met you.
And you have to wrestle withGod to give up anything that
challenges his authority in yourlife.
I can remember when I first methim, I you might not know this,
(21:11):
but I collected comics and Iwas totally immersed in comics,
and comics was like an idol tome because I would spend $20 to
$100 every week, no lie, and Iwould buy up all the comics and
I would spend my weekend readingall of the comics.
All of them.
By the time I really met theLord, I had chests in my room,
(21:33):
about four to five of 10,000comics in there.
And one of the things that Iwrestled with God was getting
rid of them.
And I threw 10,000 comics intothe garbage dumpster.
I didn't go sell them.
I threw them all away.
By the time I was collectingcomics, comics were not a
dollar, they weren't 50 cents,they were like a dollar, dollar
(21:54):
ninety five, two ninety five,three ninety five, four
ninety-five because they had allthese wonderful pages.
But I had to get rid of thatfrom my life.
And I wrestled with him for awhile, but I had a particular
individual in my life that spoketo me, and when he did it, I
knew it in my heart, and I hadto get rid of it, and I got rid
of it.
Music had to get rid of it.
(22:15):
There are things in your lifebefore you came to God that are
ingrained in you, and you feellike that is your sense of self,
but it is not.
It is not you.
It is what God needs to get ridof so you can become the you in
Him that you need to be.
There has to be points in yourlife where you are wrestling
(22:39):
with God to give up the thingsthat need to be given up in
order to move on with him.
Because otherwise, castingaside every burden, every
weight, it's gonna hold youback.
And you're not gonna be able togo out in a full run because
you're with this parachutebehind you, and it's holding you
back.
It's making you strong, butstrong in the flesh, but it's
(23:00):
holding you back.
And then we wrestle with him tobe silent.
Because we so much value ourown opinion, we so much value
our own experiences in the Lordthat we think that's the way it
has to be.
And so we talk and talk andtalk and talk and talk and talk
(23:23):
and talk and talk and talk andtalk to the Lord, and we never
shut up.
We never just be quiet, butlisten of me.
Learn of me, learn of my waysthat I may show you who I am.
And so that's my speculation.
(23:45):
Take it or leave it.
Years after this, Arabia andreceiving this revelation and
him ministering the gospel, hesays, Paul says to his spiritual
son in the ministry, he says,son, show your study and show
yourself the proved unto God,rightly dividing the word.
(24:10):
And so I want to take thisspiritual, experiential aspect.
I can only share with you.
I can't teach you how to do it.
I can only tell you that itmust be experienced.
And as you seek him, you willhave your unique experience with
the Lord.
But when it's all said anddone, it's gonna be very similar
(24:30):
to what many of the saints ofold experienced.
And you're gonna do some of thethings and give up some things,
maybe not give up comics.
Maybe that wasn't your vice.
Maybe your vice was somethingelse, but you have to learn to
give up things in order to moveon with God.
So he says to him, study, showyourself approved, rightly
(24:54):
dividing the word.
And see, this is our challenge.
I'm taking the spiritual, nowI'm going now to the natural.
I want to make it practical, Iwant to make it something you
can now put your hands on, butthe other stuff, you gotta seek
the Lord on it.
And in order to meet thischallenge, to study, to show
ourselves approved, practicinghow to rightly divide the word,
(25:16):
how do we rightly apply thisparticular word to our situation
or to his situation or hersituation, we've got to set
aside time to really dig intothe word.
Because many times in the oldcovenant, and I'll just bring up
three examples, he says,Blessed is the man whose delight
is in the law of the Lord, andin his law doth he do what?
(25:42):
Meditate day and night.
Meditate day and night on thelaw.
It says also, when I rememberthee upon my bed and meditate on
thee in the night watches.
That means while you're in yourbed or or you're standing on
the wall and you're you have thewatch of the night.
(26:05):
You're not just sitting therealmost trying to stay.
No, you're meditating on theLord.
You're meditating on him whenyou put your pillow down and you
go to bed and you talk with himand you meditate on the things
that he's taught you and howthey apply to you.
And he says, David says, I willmeditate upon thy precepts and
(26:28):
have respect unto thy ways.
Meditation is something thatmust be practiced by us.
We meditate.
For some of us who went tocollege who were really serious
about it, we meditated on thethings that were taught to us,
and that's how we got good atit.
(26:48):
That's how we studied and wememorized and we passed our
tests, and others, well, wereally didn't meditate on it, so
we passed with a C.
But for those of us that wereserious about school, we
meditated, and that's what itwas.
It was a study, it was it wasuh uh you thinking on it deeply,
not just superficially, notjust oh yeah, yeah, I heard
that, I remember something aboutthat.
It's you you really got intoit, especially if you liked it.
(27:12):
But it says in Joshua, thisbook of the law shall not depart
out of thy mouth.
The law, the words of the law,you will be speaking them at all
(27:35):
times.
Bible breath?
Any Bible breaths in here?
That's speaking the law out ofyour mouth, and some people kind
of get antsy with me onFacebook because I use a lot of
scriptures.
That's because the law is in mymouth.
I'm not trying to beimpressive, I'm not trying to
(27:55):
no, I'm trying to use the wordto apply it to that situation,
but we've always got to be doingthat, and you will meditate on
the law day and night.
Why?
Because back then, when youmeditated on the law and your
parents were constantly teachingyou, constantly teaching you
(28:16):
about the law, why did they dothat?
Because they wanted you toobserve it and do it.
It was all about obeying it,not just simply memorizing it.
It was actually doing it.
That was the purpose of yourmeditation so that you learn to
do it.
For then, only then, when youdo the law, is when you make
(28:40):
your way prosperous, and thenyou'll have good success.
You see, in the old covenant,meditating on the law was
considering it deeply, notsuperficially.
It's dwelling on what did theLord say?
How do I apply that to my life?
(29:02):
How do I do that?
Well, I don't do that, okay.
The purpose of all of thismeditation is to train your
conscience.
Because a lot of you had anupbringing that wasn't quite
right in the Lord, and yourconscience is trained to think
(29:22):
certain things that are actuallywrong, but because you've
always done it in your life andyou never told it was wrong,
your conscience actually thinksit was right.
But you need to train yourconscience in the word, and then
you receive new conviction, andthen you start renewing your
mind, and then you start walkingdifferently.
(29:45):
But it doesn't happen byreading the word and saying,
Yeah, I read chapter one.
It's about meditation, lettingit sink in, and not hear a word,
oh yeah, that applies to sisterso-and-so, or brother.
No, you missed it because itapplied to you a lot.
(30:06):
We always thinking about how itapplies to somebody, we don't
realize that it applies to us.
So the purpose of all of thismeditation is to train our
consciences, and this is what iscalled in the new covenant,
renewing the mind, so that wemay observe and obey his word.
But if that's all we do, ifthat's all we do, study, study,
(30:31):
study, study, we will never belifted off of this natural realm
into walking it in the spirit.
It'll just be an obligatoryobedience.
And although obedience isbetter than sacrifice, when you
obey with a willful heart ratherthan a begrudging heart, who do
you think he's gonna be morepleased with?
(30:52):
He's gonna be pleased with theone that was a cheerful giver,
that cheerfully obeyed, and notjust begrudgingly, you know?
So in Romans 8, Paul teaches usof some very powerful things.
He teaches that the law couldnot fulfill righteousness in us.
(31:18):
Why?
Because the law is weak throughour flesh.
If we tried our best from theday we were born to walk in the
law as he spoke it, wrote it, wewould fail.
(31:38):
It was inevitable.
Every human being on earth hasdecided to walk contrary to the
law, except one.
And so if I'm going to walk inthis law, it doesn't come by
meditation.
I must be raised up into ahigher level, into another realm
(32:02):
of existence.
And Paul goes on to teach inRomans 8 that there is now a law
of the spirit of life in ChristJesus.
And it is this law that hasfreed us from the law of sin and
death.
This law of the spirit of lifein Christ Jesus, not the old
(32:25):
one, this one freed me from thelaw of sin and death.
Have you meditated sufficientlyon that one?
Have you thought about thatreal deeply?
Because some of us strugglewith our little vices, and we're
struggling because we have notlearned the new law of the
spirit of life in Christ Jesus,which frees us from the law of
(32:49):
sin and death.
You see, in the law, inherentin the law was righteousness.
There's nothing wrong with thelaw, the law is perfect.
Don't steal, don't murder,worship the Lord your God, and
him only will you serve?
Honor your father and mother.
All of that's good.
All of that's perfect.
There's nothing wrong with thelaw.
(33:10):
It's us.
And I cannot fulfill the law inthe flesh.
And so I've got to learn well,what is this law of the spirit
of life in Christ Jesus?
Because that's what's freeingme from sin and death in the new
covenant.
So our meditation is not merelyon the law of the old covenant.
(33:32):
Anybody know what the purposeof the law of the old covenant
was?
Interestingly enough, Paulspeaks of this as well.
Bishop Harris was about toanswer.
I'm like, you know, you know.
The purpose of the law of theold covenant was, you can turn
(33:54):
there.
Galatians 3, verse 24.
You can write that in yournotes.
The purpose of the law in theold covenant was to bring us
unto Christ.
Yeah, it taught us what to do.
Yeah, it taught us what not todo, but in my flesh, I can't
(34:15):
even do it anyway.
So it's supposed to drive me,it was supposed to push me in
the direction of where I needyou, Jesus.
I need you.
And it's what we try to teachour own children as we raise
them up and have themunderstand.
Do you see what's in yourheart?
Do you see what's in yourheart?
(34:36):
And not focus so much on the onwhere the parts where they
fail, but we acknowledge them.
But that is supposed to driveyou into I want a relationship
with Christ because I can't dothis alone.
I can't do this by myself.
Without Jesus, we can donothing.
He said the law was ourschoolmaster, it was our
(35:04):
teacher.
It brought us to Christ.
After failure, failure, afterfailure, after failure, all I
want to do is be freed from thisand know Christ.
Because I can't do it on myown.
And then look at what it says: that we might be justified, (35:21):
undefined
never sinned by faith.
By faith in Jesus.
But after that faith is come,we're no longer under a
schoolmaster.
I'm no longer under the law.
Not to say that the law waswrong, but to say that if I'm
(35:42):
going to be justified, is nowgoing to be justified by faith
in him.
He's going to justify me,whereas I could not justify
myself.
For ye are children of God byfaith in Christ Jesus.
You see, our relationship withour Father or Christ as children
(36:05):
is not through the knowledge ofhim.
Our relationship is Christ aschildren is not because we know
he exists.
It is by faith in him, inknowing him.
It did not come through theknowledge of the law.
(36:28):
So I say again, our meditationshould not merely be on the law,
but on him whom the law was tobring us unto Jesus Christ.
There's a difference therebetween just knowing the law for
the sake of knowing it andknowing him through the law.
(36:52):
That's why it is so importantthat you inherit the indwelling
spirit of Christ.
I cannot separate the two andsay, I have faith in him, yet I
have not his spirit.
Paul says, Ye are not in theflesh.
(37:13):
I'm back in Romans 8.
Ye are not in the flesh, but inthe spirit, big if.
If the spirit of God dwells.
So I'm asking you, is theSpirit of God in you?
Because if it is, then you haveaccess to being in the Spirit.
(37:35):
If you don't, you don't havethat access.
I all I can do is question you.
You figure that out.
You'll know if you measure yourlife experiences with the word
and what it teaches us toreceive the spirit.
Now, if any man have not thespirit of Christ, he is none of
(37:57):
his.
So here I say again that it wasnot the knowledge of the law
that established yourrelationship to God.
It was your knowledge of him.
It was you knowing him, and byfaith in him, through the Spirit
of life that indwells us, wenow have relationship with him.
(38:20):
We now have our being, we haveour identity, we are the
children of God.
Because Paul goes on to say,right at that end of Romans 8,
for as many as are led by theSpirit of God, they are the sons
of God.
So when I say by faith, well,yeah, but if you don't have the
(38:45):
Spirit and all you're doing isbelieving, yeah, that God
exists, and yeah, the third day,that's all fine and dandy.
But you need to have thatrelationship with him because it
is by the Spirit that you wereas a child of God.
So if the scriptures tell usthat we should be meditating on
the law of the Lord andmeditating, considering deeply
(39:06):
his commandments and his ways,not merely focusing on the word,
it's meditating on him throughthe eyes of the word.
That's where our meditationshould be.
Our meditation in the newcovenant that we live in is to
(39:27):
consider deeply what it means towalk in the spirit.
If you were blessed andappreciate listening to this
podcast, and you would like tosupport us in our efforts,
consider lifting us up in prayerfirst.
Then remember these four socialmedia buzzwords share, like,
subscribe, or follow.
(39:48):
Share this podcast link withsomeone else by text, email, or
word of mouth in the hopes thatthey might be uplifted as you
were.
Like by leaving a positiverating or review with whomever
you listen to our podcast.
Subscribe to support the showmonetarily with the link in our
podcast description.
Follow us on all our socialmedia platforms.
May God bless you and make youprosperous in Him as you listen
(40:12):
and obey His voice.
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