Golden Nuggets July 30, 2010 (Numbers 21, Deuteronomy 2-3)
Abiding in God

Last week, we looked at Numbers 21, and Deuteronomy 2 and 3, and considered the extraordinary power and privilege we have been given, partnering with Yeshua, to “take back the Land,” to destroy the enemy’s influence from off the earth. Yeshua conquered and defeated the enemy upon the Cross, giving us the power, through His Spirit, to possess the territory the enemy stole, and hand it back to God.

In this week’s study, we consider how God gives us a power greater than shared responsibility, and a relationship deeper than partnership. He gives us oneness with Himself. We are called to Abide in Messiah, to be One with Messiah, as Yeshua Abides in His Father, is One with His Father. At no point in the Tenach, in the Old Testament, is anybody ever called to Abide in the Father, in YHWH. It is unthinkable, practically unspeakable. But we are called to abide in Messiah, and THROUGH MESSIAH, who is One with our Father, with YHWH, we are called to abide in YHWH. That abiding becomes our dwelling place, and that dwelling place is the Holy of Holies. Nobody in the Old Testament could have imagined living in the Holy of Holies, a place so extraordinary in its majesty and in its holiness and so beyond our comprehension, that when the High Priest entered into it once a year, he entered terrified for his life. We die in Messiah, and as long as we remain in Yeshua, NEVER return from the Holy of Holies. Dead to ourselves, we resurrect with Messiah Yeshua into a new creation, and that new creation abides in God forever. We abide in the Holy of Holies.

(Mostly, we take this profound intimacy with God’s Holiness for granted. OF COURSE, because Scripture says so, we dwell within Yeshua. OF COURSE, Yeshua dwells within His Father. Therefore, OF COURSE, we dwell within the Father. BUT… we rarely consider what that really means. )

We conquer the evil forces themselves, going directly for the juggler vein of the one who traps people, who imprisons people and nations, because, now, through the Blood of Messiah, we can, and we bless people to be freed from all forms of tyranny. We are more than conquerors. Like the Israelites who were able to defeat seven nations stronger than themselves, we are able to destroy principalities who could wipe us off the face of the earth, all in Yeshua’s Holy Name. But this victory is only for those who pick up their crosses and carry them daily. When we die daily to ourselves, and daily choose to live only for and through and in Messiah, we are recognized by the enemy, who must, in the Name of Yeshua, obey us.

The following paraphrase of this week’s parsha, taken from Deuteronomy 7-11, replaces the words “commandments, ordinances, laws, etc.” with the words “Abide in God, love God, and love your neighbor as yourself.” It is quite extraordinary in its application. I hope you enjoy reading it. It was a great blessing to write. The Scripture reference numbers remain so you can follow along in your Bibles and see what I have done. (I used The New American Standard Bible.) God is very, very good.

God bless you in Yeshua! No weapon formed against any of you can prosper. All those covered in the Blood of the Lamb are totally victorious through Him. God bless you all! Shalom!

John 14: 20 I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

Deuteronomy 7:12-26
12"(S)Then it shall come about, because you abide in me and love me and love your neighbor as yourself, that the LORD your God will abide with you and His loving kindness will fill you, as it filled the apostles. 13"He will (T)love you and bless you and (U)multiply Himself within you; He will bless you with much fruit for His Kingdom, your grain and your new wine (your communion in Messiah), and your oil (your anointing by the Holy Spirit), will increase your spiritual wealth in the Kingdom of God, which He swore to your forefathers to give you. 14"You shall be blessed above all peoples; no one who does this will be unfruitful for God’s Kingdom.

15"(W)The LORD will remove from you all infirmity; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases caused by sin which you have known, but He will give them to the spiritual forces of darkness (where they belong and from where they come). 16"You shall destroy all evil; your eye shall not pity it, nor shall you serve it, for that would be a snare to you. 17"If you say in your heart, ‘The evil powers are greater than I; how can I (Z)dispossess them?' 18you shall not be afraid of them; you shall well (AA)remember what the LORD your God did to Pharaoh and to all Egypt, and what He did to Satan through Yeshua: 19(AB)the great trials which you saw in your own life as well, and the signs and the wonders and the mighty hand and the outstretched arm by which the LORD your God brought you out from evil. So shall the LORD your God do to all the enemies of your souls. 20"Moreover, the LORD your God will send (AC)the hornet against them, until the evil influences that try to hide themselves from you perish.. 21"You shall not dread them, for (AD)the LORD your God is in your midst, (AE)a great and awesome God. 22"(AF)The LORD your God will clear away the evil within you little by little; you will not be able to put an end to it more quickly than God permits, for your desires may be too numerous for every single thing to be destroyed at once. (This is the update the LORD gave me for this passage in this particular season that we have entered into: The LORD your God will quickly now, in this season, clear away the evil, for now is the season in which He is doing a quick work) 23"(AG)But the LORD your God will deliver you from them, and will throw them into great confusion until they are destroyed. 24"(AH)He will deliver their strongholds into your hand so that you will make their name perish from under heaven; (AI)no evil influence will be able to stand before you until you have destroyed them.

25"Destroy the works of the enemy with the Fire of God’s Love; do not covet the riches that make them glisten, or you will be snared by it, for it is an abomination to the LORD your God. 26"You shall not bring anything of the enemy into your life or your house, otherwise you will be banned from intimacy with God; you shall utterly detest it and you shall utterly abhor it, for it is something banned from God’s Love.

Deuteronomy 8
1"You will be careful to remain within Me, and within My Love, that you (AO)may blossom spiritually and create more disciples, and continue to possess the Kingdom of God, which the LORD swore to give to your forefathers and gave to the apostles. 2"(AP)You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has (AQ)led you through your wilderness season, that He might humble you, (AR)testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would continue to abide with Him and keep His Commandments of Love or not. 3"He humbled you and let you be spiritually hungry, then fed you with His Living Word, Yeshua, whom you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that (AS)man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the LORD, out of Yeshua.

4"(AT)He took care of you during all these years. 5"(AU)Thus you are to know in your heart that the LORD your God was disciplining you just as a man disciplines his son. 6"Therefore, abide in Messiah, love your God and your neighbor, walk in His ways and fear Him. 7"For (AV)the LORD your God is bringing you further into the Kingdom of God, a land where His Spirit flows, where it gushes up and brings forth ever increasing amounts of fresh water, flowing forth in both your low times and your high times, 8a kingdom for the Body of Messiah, filled with the fruit and grace of Messiah, His Spirit and His Sweetness; 9a land where you are fed spiritually without scarcity, where you do not lack anything; a land whose building blocks are strong as iron, whose utensils conduct the Spirit as well as copper conducts heat.

10"When (AW)you are filled and satisfied spiritually, bless the LORD your God for His Kingdom which He has given you. 11"Beware that you do not (AX)forget the LORD your God by not abiding in His Love, and not sharing His Love with others, as I am commanding you today; 12otherwise, (AY)when you are spiritually satisfied, and have good, stable ministries, 13when your congregation multiplies, and your income multiplies, and all that you have multiplies, 14then your heart will become proud and you will (AZ)forget the LORD your God who brought you out from the land of sin, out of the house of slavery.

15"He led you out of the enemy’s territory, with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water; He (BC)brought Living Water for you out of the rock of flint, out of Messiah Himself. 16"As He led you out of the enemy’s territory He fed you the Living Word of God, Yeshua, (BD)which your fathers did not know, that He might humble you and that He might (BE)test you, to do good for you in the end. 17"Otherwise, (BF)you may say in your heart, 'My power and the strength of my hand made me this wealth.' 18"But you shall remember the LORD your God, for (BG)it is He who is giving you power to become Spiritually whole, that you may dwell within Him, and know His Love, confirming His covenant which He swore to your fathers, and gave to the apostles.

19"But if you ever forget the LORD your God and go after the enemy and serve him and worship him again, (BH)I testify against you today that you will utterly perish. 20"Like Satan, whom Yeshua defeated upon the cross, so (BI)you shall be defeated; because you would not listen to the voice of the LORD your God.
Deuteronomy 9:1-6
1"Hear, my children! You have crossed from death to life to go in to dispossess principalities greater and mightier than you, strongholds (BK)fortified to heaven, 2demons great and tall, the sons of evil, whom you know and of whom you have heard it said, '(BL)Who can stand before the sons of evil? '3"Know therefore today that (BM)it is the LORD your God who crossed over before you from death into life, as (BN)a consuming fire. He will destroy them and He will subdue them before you, so that (BO)you may drive them out and destroy them quickly, just as the LORD has spoken to you. 4"(BP)Do not say in your heart when the LORD your God has driven them out before you, 'Because of my righteousness the LORD has brought me in to possess this land,' but it is (BQ)because of the wickedness of these principalities that the LORD is dispossessing them before you. 5"It is (BR)not because of your righteousness or the uprightness of your heart that you are going to possess their land, but it is because of the wickedness of these principalities that the LORD your God is driving them out before you, in order to confirm (BS)the oath which the LORD swore to your fathers and because of the commission He gave the apostles. 6"Know, then, it is not because of your righteousness that the LORD your God is giving you this good land to possess, for you are (BT)a stubborn people.

Deuteronomy 10:12-22
12"(DS)Now, Israel (put in your own name here, i.e. Wendy), what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all His ways and (DT)love Him, and to serve the LORD your God with (DU)all your heart and with all your soul, 13and to abide in Him, to love Him and to love your neighbor as yourself, as I am commanding you today for your good? 14"Behold, (DV)to the LORD your God belong heaven and the highest heavens, (DW)the earth and all that is in it. 15"(DX)Yet on your fathers did the LORD set His affection to love them, and He chose their descendants after them, even you above all peoples, as it is this day. 16"(DY)So circumcise your heart, and (DZ)stiffen your neck no longer. 17"(EA)For the LORD your God is the God of gods and the (EB)Lord of lords, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God (EC)who does not show partiality nor (ED)take a bribe. 18"He executes justice for (EE)the orphan and the widow, and shows His love for the alien by giving him food and clothing. 19"(EF)So show your love for the alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt. 20"You shall fear the LORD your God; you shall serve Him and (EG)cling to Him, and (EH)you shall swear by His name. 21"He is (EI)your praise and He is your God, who has done these great and awesome things for you which your eyes have seen. 22"(EJ)Your fathers went down to Egypt seventy persons in all, (EK)and now the LORD your God has made you as numerous as the stars of heaven.
Deuteronomy 11
1"You shall therefore (EL)love the LORD your God, and always (EM)abide within Him, keeping His charge, His statutes, His ordinances, and His commandments of love. 2"Know this day (EN)that I am not speaking with people who do not know the love and power of the LORD your God-- His greatness, His mighty hand and His outstretched arm, 3and (EO)His signs and His works in the midst of the kingdom of darkness, when He defeated Satan through Yeshua’s death, resurrection and ascension, 4destroyed the Pharisees’ perversion of the Jewish people’s faith, and sent His Holy Spirit to the people at Shavuot/Pentecost, removing evil’s power to keep the people bound to sin; 5and what He did for you personally in the wilderness to lead you to faith in Messiah … 7and your own eyes have seen all these great work of the LORD which He did in your own lives.

8"You shall therefore continue to abide in Messiah and continue to practice love, as I am commanding you today, (ES)so that you may be strong enough in love to bring the power of the Cross into the territory God gives you, 9(ET)so that you may minister fruitfully, for a long time, expanding the Kingdom of God, as YHWH promised your fathers and breathed into the apostles, bringing people into a Kingdom flowing with God’s nourishment and sweetness.

10" For the Kingdom of God, which you have entered to possess, is not like the kingdom of the enemy, from which you came, where you were nourished through your own efforts. 11 But the Kingdom of God, which you have crossed over from death to life to possess, a land of glorious spiritual heights and soul-transforming lows, is nourished by God Himself, by the rain of heaven. 12The LORD your God provides for His own Kingdom; the eyes of the LORD your God area always watching over it, from the beginning to the end.
13"It shall come about, (EX)if you listen obediently to my commandments which I am commanding you today, (EY)to love the LORD your God and to serve Him (EZ)with all your heart and all your soul, 14that (FA)He will give the rain for your land in its season, the [d](FB)early and late rain, (continuous flow from the Holy Spirit, especially for renewed understanding of the Word of God, from the beginning to the end of your earthly life in Him) that you may gather in your grain and your new wine (your communion in Messiah) and your oil (your anointing by the Holy Spirit). 15"(FC) 13" He will provide for the needs of those you serve, and you will be nourished spiritually and physically through those you serve.
16"(FE)Beware that your hearts are not deceived, and that, having known Yeshua, you do not turn away from Yeshua and serve other gods and worship them. 17"Or (FF)the anger of the LORD will be kindled against you, and He will (FG)stop showering down blessings upon you, and you will yield no fruit, and you will spiritually die, and no longer live in God’s Kingdom which Yeshua gave you. 18"(FJ)You shall therefore impress these words of mine on your heart and on your soul; and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontals on your forehead. 19"(FK)You shall teach them to your sons, talking of them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you rise up. 20"(FL)You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates,
21If you abide in the LORD, you will always be speaking of Him, teaching others about Him, wearing Him upon your sleeve and your forehead, and you will therefore remain in Him in His Kingdom as long as the heavens remain above the earth. 22" For if you are careful to abide in Him as Yeshua has commanded us to do, to love the LORD your God, to walk in His ways and hold fast to Him 23then the LORD will drive out all evil influences from before you and you will dispossess demonic realms greater and mightier than you 24"Every place for which you pray will be yours spiritually, your spiritual borders will be from the spiritual desert to the land of Frankincense (altar of sacrifice) from the river, the river of the Garden of Eden, to the western sea (the unsaved nations.)The enemy will not be able to stand before you; the LORD your God will lay the dread of you and the fear of you on all the enemy’s soil over which you pray, as He has spoken to you.
Let us pray.