POWER VERSUS STRENGTH

Genesis chapter 1







Today we are walking in: Power Versus Strength!!!







Today we look to the word-SUBMIT- H6031 `anah, to humble oneself, submit





The Torah Testifies………….




Genesis 16:9




And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Return to thy mistress, and submit H6031 thyself under her hands.






The Prophets Proclaim…………..




2 Samuel 22:45




Strangers shall submit H6031 themselves unto me: as soon as they hear, they shall be obedient unto me.







The Writings bear Witness………..





Psalms 18:44


As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit H6031 themselves unto me.







Power versus Strength




What men need is a picture of what a truly strong man looks like. A strong man is a man who understands his Yah-given strength. A strong man is a fully maximized man. Strength is ability, authority, capacity, potential. To be a strong man is to maximize all your potential for the purpose for which you were created. Yahusha was the strongest Man who ever lived, yet He is also described as meek. Someone has said that meekness is power under control. That is what true strength is. It is power that is ready to be channeled into good and constructive purposes rather than reckless or selfish ones.




Remember that the purpose of something is the reason for which it was made, and its design is determined by that purpose. Strength was given to men to enable them to lead effectively. If you as a man understood your purpose, you would realize that you were not put in a leadership position because you are big, strong, or overbearing. You are put in that position because of your purpose. Your strength is meant to support that purpose.




I once heard a man on the Oprah Winfrey television show say, ―I‘m the head of my home, and if my wife doesn‘t like it, she can put up or shut up. I was sitting there thinking, ―He needs a good session with me. Oprah asked him, ―What makes you the head of the home? and he said, ―I‘m the head of the home because I say so. I wear the pants in the family. Listen, if you‘re the man just because you wear the pants, you have a problem, because women wear pants, too.




Males didn‘t choose their position. Yah gave it to them. However, the problem is that many males have taken another position that they weren‘t given. If we voted for a man to become the president or prime minister of the country, but instead he took over by force and became a dictator, he‘d be taking a position he wasn‘t given. The first position was given to him by legal authority; the other was seized.




Whenever you take your position by force, you‘ve moved out of your legal standing. The difference between an elected head of state and a dictator is very simple. The first has authority and the second merely has power. To have authority means to have a right to govern. Therefore, if a man slaps his wife, kicks his children, and then says, ―I‘m the man of the house; I do what I want, that‘s an abuse of authority; it‘s merely wielding power over others. Whenever you abuse your power, you no longer have legitimate authority.




That is why, any time a man starts to dominate another human being, he is out of Yah‘s will. This principle applies to preachers, as well. Any minister who says to you, ―You can- not go and visit anybody else‘s community, is someone to be wary of. He‘s beginning to dominate. And Yah says men were created to dominate the earth, not one another. When this occurs, and power is abused, then authority is forfeited.




A Distorted View of Submission




Many men‘s distorted understanding of strength can be seen in the way they view the concept of submission. Yet the passage in which this concept is found, Ephesians 5:22–23, contains something many people miss. It says, “Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Most High. For the husband is the head of the wife as Hamachiach is the head of the community.”




Let‘s first talk about the word submission. The definition of submit means to ―willfully give your will to another. Submission has nothing to do with force or pressure. It‘s an act of the will. To submit is the choice of the person who is submitting, not the command of one who wants to be submitted to. Put another way, you cannot submit unless you want to, and no one can make you submit if you don‘t want to.




Any man who has to force a woman to submit does not deserve to be submitted to. He is no longer worthy of submission; he has become a slave driver. Do you know what makes a slave a slave? Force and fear. Those are the elements that are dominating too many homes. The Bible says, “Perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18). This means that if a man has to make a woman afraid of him in order to force her to do something he wants done, then he doesn‘t know what love is.




The Scripture says, “Wives submit to your husbands as to the Most High” (Eph. 5:22, emphasis added). As long as a man is acting like the Most High, a womanshould be in submission to him.




I‘ve never seen Yahusha slap one of His children. I‘ve never seen Yahusha scream or swear at His people. No matter what we do to Yahusha, He is ready to forgive us. This is how husbands need to treat their wives.




However, probably half of men do not deserve their wives‘ submission. Yahusha said to His community—His bride— “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you” (Heb. 13:5). And yet, some men stay out all night, then come home and want their wives to cook for them. They forsake their wives and their children spiritually and emotionally, even financially, and they still want submission. That‘s a sin, men. You don‘t deserve submission. Submission is not dependent on what you say. It is dependent on how you live.




Do you believe in the Most High Yahusha Hamachiach as your personal Savior? All right, then. Before you were saved, did Yahusha ever come to you and hold you up against the wall by your collar and say, ―If you don‘t believe in Me, I‘ll send you straight to Hades? He didn‘t do that. As a matter of fact, He probably waited a long time for you. When you were involved in all your foolish living, He didn‘t force you to accept Him. He didn‘t break down your door. He is very polite. He very quietly convicts people. He doesn‘t pressure us. He just shows us His love.




So, one day, you realized, ―This love is overwhelming, and you accepted His love. You desired to follow Yahusha. One of the things I love about Yahusha is that He calls us to follow Him. He doesn‘t tie a rope around our necks and drag us. He leads, and we follow. If we are willingly following somebody, we are not being forced against our wills.




Have you ever been on a guided tour of a cavern? The guide takes you down through these tunnels, and all you do is follow him. You submit to his authority because He knows the way through the dark tunnels. Of course, you can turn around anytime and go back, although you would probably walk into some walls and stub your toes and scrape your knees because you‘re not familiar with the cavern. However, the point is that you can turn around if you want to. And that is what Yah is trying to tell us.




Yahusha doesn‘t force us to submit to Him. All He ever says to His disciples is, ―Follow Me. This is exactly what husbands are supposed to say to their wives: ―Honey, follow me. That‘s what submission is really about. Now, a woman may say, ―I don‘t want to go where you‘re headed, buddy. You may be going toward making money and acquiring prestige while you ignore Yah and your family. You may be headed toward destroying your health with drugs and alcohol. You may be killing yourself with carousing and fooling around. Your wife doesn‘t want to follow you under those conditions, and you can‘t expect her to.




Do you know why we keep following Yahusha? It is because He knows where He‘s going, He knows how to get there, He‘s the only Way there, and we like where He‘s going. Even more than that, His love draws us to Him. We love Yahusha so much, we‘ll do anything He asks. Why do we love Him? It is not because He threatens us with a big hammer, saying, ―If you sin, I‘ll kill you. He doesn‘t say that. He says, ―If you sin, I am faithful and just to forgive you. (See 1 John 1:9.) Isn‘t it wonderful to follow Someone like that? Every time you slip, He picks you up and brushes you off. He doesn‘t talk about your past at all. We submit to Him because we love Him.




So the Scripture says, in essence, ―Wives, submit to your husbands when they act like the Most High. Many wives, as well as husbands, don‘t understand this truth. For instance, suppose a husband comes home very drunk, and he goes up to his wife and says, ―I want another drink! Go buy me another drink. Now, she‘s a precious Hebrew lady, so she says, ―I don‘t think you should be dr— He interrupts her, saying, ―Shut up, woman! I‘m the head of this home. The Bible says.... And he‘ll quote it, too! ―The Bible says you‘re supposed to submit. Now, go and buy me a drink. She doesn‘t understand the true nature of submission, so she becomes afraid, takes some money, buys a bottle of something, and gives it to her husband—which he uses to abuse his health.




What she should do is look him in the face and say, ―Honey, the Bible says that I should submit to you—when you act like the Most High. The Most High has never asked me to buy Him something that will destroy Him. And because I love you so much, honey, I won‘t go. I want you to live. Then, of course, she takes off running after she finishes saying that! But that is what the man needs to hear.




Situations in which people have unbelieving husbands or wives can be difficult, but the Bible tells us what to do under these circumstances. First Corinthians 7 says that if a woman holds to the standards of the Word of Yah, and her unbelieving husband agrees to stay with her, “let her not leave him” (v. 13 KJV). However, if he cannot live with her convictions, the Bible says, “Let him depart” (v. 15 KJV). In other words, if he can‘t live with her commitment to the Most High, the Bible tells her, ―Let him go. You don‘t compromise your faith even for your spouse.




Some women allow their husbands to beat them half to death because they think that is being submissive. I have counseled many women who think this way. They come to my office badly battered, and ask, ―What am I supposed to do? I say, ―Remove yourself from the premises. ―But the Bible says to submit. ―Yes, but not to a beating. You are to submit to the Most High. Until you see the Most High in the house, leave. You are not to be foolish enough just to sit there and let your life be put in jeopardy.




―Well, the Bible did say we have to suffer for Yahusha. ―My dear woman, your husband comes home totally drunk and beats you, and you‘re talking about suffering for Yahusha? There is nothing in the Bible that says you should just stand there and suffer abuse. First Peter 2:19–20 says that if you suffer for the sake of the Gospel, that is true suffering. But if you suffer for the sake of your own sin and folly, that is not to your credit. It‘s foolish for you to let somebody beat you black and blue, then turn around and say, It’s all for Yahusha.‘ That is not submission.




The point I‘m trying to make to men is this: don‘t quote Scripture to a woman unless you are behaving like Yahusha does. When you start acting like Yahusha, you won‘t have to demand that your wife submit. When you start loving her like Yahusha loves her, when you start forgiving her like Yahusha forgives her, when you start blessing her like Yahusha blesses her, when you start caring for her and listening to her like Yahusha does, she will do anything for you—because she wants a man like Yahusha in the house.




Yah is saying to men, ―Don‘t you dare demand respect. Don‘t you dare order submission. Earn it. Remember that Yahusha never once commanded anybody to follow Him. Never. He always asked, because He knew who He was and where He was going. He didn‘t need to demand allegiance to give Himself a sense of importance. And Yahusha said, ―If you love Me, you‘ll keep My commandments. Our keeping of His commandments is based on our loving Him. That‘s the pattern we‘re to follow in the marriage relationship and really in all relationships between males and females. If a male wants to be a true leader, he must learn who he is in Yah and become someone who earns respect—someone who loves, guides, and inspires rather than who forces others to do what he wants.




Equal and Different




Once men understand the true nature of their strength, what they need to keep in mind is that men and women were created both equal and different. They both have dominion, so that their assignment is the same. However, because men and women have different purposes, designs, and physical bodies, their authority is manifested and carried out in distinct ways.




The male was made first because he was to be responsible for everything and everyone who came after him. Yah hasn‘t changed His program. He isn‘t going to relinquish that responsibility from the male at all. The female that Yah created needs to understand her purpose as helper.




We aren‘t to walk around saying, ―Well, the culture has changed now. A woman doesn‘t need to honor a man as the leader in the family. It doesn‘t matter if the husband is less educated or is making less money than his wife. That does not change Yah‘s purpose. The only way to fix our confused society is to get back to Yah‘s plan. Purpose, not social change, determines position.




A woman can say to her husband, ―Let me tell you something. I have a college degree, and you just have your GED. I make more money than you do. I could pay for this house by myself. I don‘t need you. What kind of spirit is that? I know that some women had that attitude before they were saved and knew Yah‘s ways. However, that isn‘t the perspective we‘re to have any longer.




I can hear some people saying, ―You are always going back to the old days, to the time when men used to walk on women and treat them like doormats. You don‘t understand what I‘m talking about. This is a matter of purpose and position.




Most of us have problems with this concept because we believe that being ―different implies being inferior or superior to others—especially inferior. Don‘t confuse being different with being lesser. Different does not imply inferiority or superiority; different simply means different. A woman is not less than a man because she is a woman, and a man is not more than a woman because he is a man. Their differences are necessary because of their purposes.




I like the way Paul said it in 1 Corinthians 11:7–8: “A man...is the image and the glory of Yah; but the woman is the glory of man. For man did not come from woman, but woman from man.” Is that true? Sure. Yah caused the man to go into a deep sleep and drew the woman out of him. “Neither was man created for woman, but woman for man” (v. 9). Is that true? Yes. Yah said, “I will make a helper suitable for him” (Gen. 2:18). “For this reason [purpose], and because of the angels, the woman ought to have a sign of authority on her head” (1 Cor. 11:10). The Scripture says, “For this reason.” In other words, this is Yah‘s order in creation, and so men and women should live in that order.




Yet here‘s what most people forget: “In the Most High, however, woman is not independent of man, nor is man independent of woman” (v. 11). Yah is saying, in effect, ―Men and women need one another. They need each other‘s position. “For as woman came from man, so also man is born of woman” (v. 12). I like that. The example Paul used is that men need women to give them birth, but women need men to enable them to conceive. This is definitely not an inferiority- superiority situation. It has to do with purpose. Ephesians 5, which talks about wives submitting to their husbands, also says, “Submit to one another out of reverence for Hamachiach” (v. 21, emphasis added). There has to be a mutual submitting to one another if Yah‘s purposes are to be carried out.




The Restoration of Yah’s Purpose




If men would realize that—




• dominion is not the same thing as domination,

• dominion is to be exercised over the world and not over other people,

• submission is something earned rather than demanded,

• men and women are equal but different,

• men and women need one another,

we would go a long way to restoring both harmonious relationships between males and females and Yah‘s plan for humanity.




I am convinced that there can be no true dominion over the earth unless Yah‘s original design is intact. It is crucial for us to understand the principle that the way we are designed is because of our purpose for existence. The way a male is and the way a female is are directly related to why they exist. They each have been called to special and specific responsibilities in Yah‘s kingdom purposes.




In the next three teachings, we‘ll take a closer look at Yah‘s dominion assignments for the male.




Principles




1. Yah created men and women to dominate the earth, not to dominate one another.




2. Yah‘s plan is for the individual strengths of men and women to combine to produce exponential results— outcomes much greater than either could accomplish alone.




3. Adam and Eve fell because they stopped looking to their Creator for their purpose and instead looked to themselves. They thought they knew their true purpose better than Yah did.




4. The results of the Fall were mankind‘s broken relationship with Yah and spiritual death, the loss of the balanced relationship between men and women, and the loss of humanity‘s true dominion over the world.




5. Despite the Fall, Yah‘s purposes have never changed. Through the Redeemer, Yahusha Hamachiach, these lost and broken relationships and Yah‘s dominion purposes can be restored.




6. Men have an innate desire to prove themselves strong, but this has become distorted through sin so that they end up misusing their power and authority.




7. Whenever you abuse your power, you no longer have legitimate authority.




8. Submission is an act of the will of the person submitting. It cannot be forced.




9. A man needs to be a leader by following Yahusha‘ example—by loving, guiding, and inspiring those under his authority, not by demanding that they do what he says.




10. Men and women were created both equal and different.




11. Both men and women have dominion. However, because they have different purposes and designs, their authority is manifested and carried out in distinct ways.




12. A woman is not less than a man because she is a woman, and a man is not more than a woman because he is a man. Their differences are necessary because of their purposes.