We’re cloaked in distracting colors of skin, labels, religions and titles. But The Kingdom is about actively, intentionally and perpetually looking BEYOND skin, labels, religions and titles and deep within the heart/mind/eyes and lives of the cloaked. This, of course, takes time and intentionality. This is walking in the Ruach. The Ruach changes the one who submits to His rulership...who forsakes his own cloak and turns in his life for The Better One, the changed one, the Kingdom Life. We have the Ruach, Followers of The Messiah. But just because we have the Spirit doesn’t mean we walk by the Spirit. If we are not operating in a time of self-examination (becoming one with ADONAI), then we will not, cannot see. His Ruach breathes new life into the soul of the self-examining one and exchanges our worldly eyes for spiritually discerning ones in the process.
It’s as if Yeshua pulls us from the inside out exposing to us - and all else - what is not of HIS chesed, justice, mercy and humility. That’s the challenge isn’t it? That’s what must come first in the life of the disciple. I examine myself in order to ‘see if I’m in the faith’ (2 Corinthians 13:5)...do I do justly, do I love mercy and walk humbly - one with Yeshua (Micah 6:8)? It’s in this place and space that we are enabled by His Ruach to spiritually discern, seeing beyond all exteriors and manners of cloaks - colors, labels, religions and titles - to see the person (b'ztelem Elohim)for who they really are. Image-bearers who move the heart of ADONAI, The Great Compassionate I AM, full of grace and truth.
To walk in the Ruach is to possess an understanding that what we see with our eyes isn’t necessarily so. It’s much, much deeper. It’s unseen. ‘The Kingdom is within you’. The Kingdom has always and will always be A DEMONSTRATION/DISPLAY of Chesed, Justice, Mercy and Humility.
Humility starts with ADONAI. Pride starts with me. Beginning with ADONAI (humility) is the conduit by which mercy, justice and chesed FLOW - can be known and can be grown.
To boast in ADONAI is to delight in what HE delights in. It is this: (Jeremiah 9:23-24)
- to do justly & speak up for the oppressed (and help them to grow from it) when we see it
- to love mercy so that we do not become the oppressor
- to walk humbly with ADONAI - being one with His Spirit (yada)
1 Corinthians 1:17 For the Messiah did not send me to immerse but to proclaim the Good News — and to do it without relying on “wisdom” that consists of mere rhetoric, so as not to rob the Messiah’s execution-stake of its power. 18 For the message about the execution-stake is nonsense to those in the process of being destroyed, but to us in the process of being saved it is the power of God. 19 Indeed, the Tanakh says,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise
and frustrate the intelligence of the intelligent.”[a]
20 Where does that leave the philosopher, the Torah-teacher, or any of today’s thinkers? Hasn’t God made this world’s wisdom look pretty foolish? 21 For God’s wisdom ordained that the world, using its own wisdom, would not come to know him. Therefore God decided to use the “nonsense” of what we proclaim as his means of saving those who come to trust in it. 22 Precisely because Jews ask for signs and Greeks try to find wisdom, 23 we go on proclaiming a Messiah executed on a stake as a criminal! To Jews this is an obstacle, and to Greeks it is nonsense; 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, this same Messiah is God’s power and God’s wisdom! 25 For God’s “nonsense” is wiser than humanity’s “wisdom.” And God’s “weakness” is stronger than humanity’s “strength.” 26 Just look at yourselves, brothers — look at those whom God has called! Not many of you are wise by the world’s standards, not many wield power or boast noble birth. 27 But God chose what the world considers nonsense in order to shame the wise; God chose what the world considers weak in order to shame the strong; 28 and God chose what the world looks down on as common or regards as nothing in order to bring to nothing what the world considers important; 29 so that no one should boast before God. 30 It is his doing that you are united with the Messiah Yeshua. He has become wisdom for us from God, and righteousness and holiness and redemption as well! 31 Therefore — as the Tanakh says — “Let anyone who wants to boast, boast about Adonai.”
1 Corinthians 2
1 As for me, brothers, when I arrived among you, it was not with surpassing eloquence or wisdom that I came announcing to you the previously concealed truth about God; 2 for I had decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Yeshua the Messiah, and even him only as someone who had been executed on a stake as a criminal. 3 Also I myself was with you as somebody weak, nervous and shaking all over from fear; 4 and neither the delivery nor the content of my message relied on compelling words of “wisdom” but on a demonstration of the power of the Spirit, 5 so that your trust might not rest on human wisdom but on God’s power. 6 Yet there is a wisdom that we are speaking to those who are mature enough for it. But it is not the wisdom of this world or of this world’s leaders, who are in the process of passing away. 7 On the contrary, we are communicating a secret wisdom from God which has been hidden until now but which, before history began, God had decreed would bring us glory. 8 Not one of this world’s leaders has understood it; because if they had, they would not have executed the Lord from whom this glory flows. 9 But, as the Tanakh says,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard
and no one’s heart has imagined
all the things that God has prepared
for those who love him.” , __Isaiah__52:15
10 It is to us, however, that God has revealed these things. How? Through the Spirit. For the Spirit probes all things, even the profoundest depths of God. 11 For who knows the inner workings of a person except the person’s own spirit inside him? So too no one knows the inner workings of God except God’s Spirit. 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit of God, so that we might understand the things God has so freely given us. 13 These are the things we are talking about when we avoid the manner of speaking that human wisdom would dictate and instead use a manner of speaking taught by the Spirit, by which we explain things of the Spirit to people who have the Spirit. 14 Now the natural man does not receive the things from the Spirit of God — to him they are nonsense! Moreover, he is unable to grasp them, because they are evaluated through the Spirit. 15 But the person who has the Spirit can evaluate everything, while no one is in a position to evaluate him.
For who has known the mind of Adonai?
Who will counsel him?
But we have the mind of the Messiah!
But don’t speak up with a veil of righteousness when you are unjust. Don’t pretend to love mercy while you yourself are a merciless oppressor walking arrogantly before ADONAI.
The Kingdom is...Truth wrapped in Compassionate Love.
‘Check ya-self before you wrickety-wreck ya-self’ is truly a great piece of advice for LIFE. (you’re welcome)
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