UNDERSTAND YOUR FUNCTION

Romans chapter 6






Today we are walking in: Understand Your Function










Job 34:16


If now thou hast understanding, hear H8085 this: hearken to the voice of my words.









UNDERSTAND



Today we look to the word-UNDERSTAND- H8085 shama`--to hear with attention or interest, listen to understand (language)








The Torah testifies...............


Genesis 11:7


Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand H8085 one another's speech.








The prophets proclaim..................


Nehemiah 8:2


And Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women, and all that could hear H8085 with understanding, upon the first day of the seventh month.









The writings bear witness...........................


1 Kings 3:9


Give therefore thy servant an understanding H8085 heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad: for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?






Chapter 7
Understand Your Function


Vision is the ability to see above and beyond the majority.
Man has become an expert at understanding how plants and animals function. We crossbreed animals to create strains that are stronger, tastier, and more productive, and we graft stock from one tree to another to develop more compact trees that yield tastier fruit that grow larger and keep longer. But we are deficient in our understanding and application of how Yah designed man to function. We concentrate on our bodies instead of our spirits. This situation seriously threatens our ability to release our potential.


DESIGNED FOR ETERNITY


When Yah created human beings, He spoke to Himself so that men and women could be spiritual beings even as He is Spirit. He designed them to share His knowledge and wisdom and to understand His thoughts and purposes. Yah also assigned them part of His potential in that He gave them eternal spirits with eternal plans, ideas and projects.


Death and dirt have become such expected parts of our lives that we don’t understand or appreciate the concept of free, abundant, eternal life. We assume that death is natural, and we live as though sin is natural, when in truth Yah designed us to be holy beings who live forever.


THE RESULT OF DISOBEDIENCE


Adam’s disobedience destroyed Yah’s plan and brought alienation between Yah and man. Because man was no longer sustained by his Source, man’s spirit died and his body lost its ability to continually rebuild and replenish itself. Thus, the sin that brought spiritual death also caused physical death: “For the wages of sin is death. ” (Romans 6:23).


Man in his fallen state could no longer know and understand the thoughts and purposes of Yah. He became controlled by his soul instead of his spirit and began to look to his environment for the information he needed. Thus, man without Yah is a paralyzed spirit in dirt, walking on two legs.




Man without Yah is a paralyzed spirit in dirt, walking on two legs.


All human beings since Adam sin: “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of Yah...” (Romans 3:23). They bear in their spirits, souls, and bodies the penalty of his disobedience. You were born spiritually dead or paralyzed, and your body will eventually die. Your brain, apart from Yah, can know no more than those who teach you or those who write the books you read.


“MERE DIRT”


Your body does not need Yah to live. It came from the ground and needs the products from the ground to stay alive. Yahusha spoke of this when He asked the Pharisees:


“Are you still so dull?” Yahusha asked them. “Don’t you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man ‘unclean.’ For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man ‘unclean’” (Matthew 15:16-20a).


Psyche, the Greek word translated heart, literally means “the core of the spirit.” It’s what goes into your spirit that destroys you. Cancer may destroy your body, but it can’t harm your spirit. True, your spirit may become depressed by the cancer’s affects upon your body, but ultimately your spirit will live if you stay attached to Yah. That’s why rebellion against Yah is such a serious matter. When you detach yourself from your Source, your spirit man dies or enters a state of eternal paralysis, void of relationship and communion with Yah the Holy Spirit. Then the only thing you have is a decaying body. Life from the body leads to death.


The desire to steal or covet is prompted by what you see with your physical eyes, and your sexual desires are provoked by the physical wants of your body. Indeed, life from the body discourages respect and encourages behavior that regards men and women as objects to be conquered. We are tempted to treat people like products to be manipulated instead of images of Christ to be cherished and honored.


Yah has a name for those who detach themselves from Him and live from the body. He calls them “mere dirt.” Now that’s an insult. Any person who doesn’t know Yah is a mere man. A mere person does things unnaturally. Because they don’t know their Creator and the purposes and desires He had when He created them, they focus on their made beings—that which came from the dust—instead of their created beings—that which came from Yah. They abuse themselves and others because they don’t know how Yah designed them to act. Death and dirt characterize their lives.


Yah’S PLAN OF REDEMPTION


The Yah who designed you for eternal life still desires the fellowship with you that He originally intended. He sent Yahusha into the world to take away the root problem of your sin so eternity can once more be yours.
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Yahusha, because through Christ Yahusha the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death (Romans 8:1-2).


For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of Yah is eternal life in Christ Yahusha our Lord (Romans 6:23).


Yah didn’t need to save you from sin and death to meet His needs. He was doing fine before you were saved, and He’ll continue to do fine no matter what kind of relationship you have with Him in the future. Yahusha was touched by your needs. Only when you recognize that coming to Yah is for your benefit, not Yah’s, does Yah’s grace make sense. Grace is Yah’s reaching out when He didn’t need to. Grace is Yah’s caring enough to rework His original plan for the fallen race of man:


Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for Yah’s wrath remains on him (John 3:36).


THE REDEMPTION OF YOUR SPIRIT


Yahusha came to lift you from a life centered around the interests, power, and desires of your body to a life centered in Yah. He came to redeem you and to release your potential by reconnecting your spirit and Yah’s Spirit.


The word redeemed means “to purchase again.” If you lost a doll and someone found it, she could require you to pay her to get it back. The twenty dollars she asked you to pay would be the “redemptive price” because you would be buying back something that was originally yours.


You were originally Yah’s property, but satan stole you from Yah. Yahusha paid the redemptive price through death on the cross so you could be restored to eternal life and fellowship with Yah. When Yahusha saved you from sin and death, he rekindled your potential spirit by giving you His Holy Spirit to live in you and to be connected to your spirit. Because of that gift, you can begin to flow again in the many things He gave you before you were born. Through Yahusha, Yah renewed your spiritual life and reconnected your soul to His fountain of wisdom and knowledge.


THE REDEMPTION OF YOUR BODY


Although Yahusha redeemed your spirit man, your body has not yet been redeemed. After Yahusha rose from the dead, He promised that He would return to redeem your body.
Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man.... We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed— in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed (1 Corinthians 15:20-21,51b-52).


Yah intended for your body to live forever. The ability of your finger to heal after you burn it, or of an incision to heal following surgery, attests to the small amount of eternal potential left in your body. Yah still intends that you will have an eternal body. He has promised that He will give life to your body at the resurrection of the dead. Your resurrected body will be like Adam’s body before he sinned and Yahusha’ body after He rose from the dead. You will be able to touch your new physical body: “Look at My hands and My feet. It is I Myself! Touch Me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39), and you will be able to eat: “They gave
Him a piece of boiled fish, and He took it and ate it in their presence” (Luke 24:42-43).


In this life, your body is a hindrance. It gets tired, sick, bruised, and discouraged. As it grows older, you have to keep patching it together. That’s why our society is so eager to find a fountain of youth. We don’t like our aging bodies. We want them to be young again.


I like what Paul says in his second letter to the Corinthians:


Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16).


Yah’s making you a new home that will far exceed anything that plastic surgery can do for you. All plastic surgeons can do is patch your old body. Yah’s in the business of giving you a new body. So don’t worry if this body isn’t all you’d like it to be. Patch it, fix it, do whatever you can to spruce it up. But don’t equate your life with your body. Yah’s going to get out of you all that He put in you. He wants you to start releasing your potential with the body you now have and to continue using your eternal capabilities long after this body has decayed. You are much more than your imperfect, deteriorating body.


YAH’S SYSTEM-FAITH


Yah designed you to be a limitless person. He pulled you from His omnipotent Self and transferred to you a portion of His potential. He also wired you to operate like He does. When you reconnect with Yah through faith in Yahusha Hamachiach, He empowers you to return to your original mode of operation, which is like His own.
Yah thinks in terms of potential—of things that are not yet manifested. He relies on what He knows isn’t visible yet, instead of what is visible. He is not excited by what you’ve already done.


If you’ve accomplished something, enjoy it and appreciate it. But don’t get so hung up on it that you fail to move on to what you yet can do. The apostle Paul expresses it this way:


Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which Yah has called me heavenward in Christ Yahusha (Philippians 3:13-14).


Paul wasn’t satisfied with what he had attained. He was always looking for the next step. Why? Because the past is no longer motivational. Only when you look to the future with its demands and challenges can you release more of your untapped talents and abilities.


If Yah says you are or have something, it’s in you somewhere. He sees what people can’t see, and He says what He sees. If Yah says that you are an overcomer, you are an overcomer. The fact that you look more like an undercomer than an overcomer doesn’t change the truth that you are an overcomer. Because Yah says it, it is true.


Yah’s waiting for your potential to be revealed. He says, “You are not what you are acting like. Because you are My child, you have the potential to act better than you’re acting. My potential is flowing from Me to you.”


LIFE FROM THE SPIRIT OR LIFE FROM THE BODY?


Many of us don’t appreciate how faith works. We are so used to living from what we can see, hear, and touch that we have great difficulty moving into the realm of faith. If, for example, someone asks us how we are doing, we usually respond based on the condition of our bodies or our souls. We focus on our illnesses or the depressed thoughts that are weighing us down and neglect to mention the many blessings Yah has promised us. These promises have a much greater impact on our lives than our physical diseases and our emotional struggles.


If someone asks you how you are doing, tell them that you’re blessed. You might not look like it, but Yah’s blessings are in you somewhere. And each time that you say you are blessed, the blessings within you grow. Eventually what you say and what you see will match.


Faith sees what hasn’t been manifested. It deals with what exists but is invisible. The minute you manifest something, it no longer requires faith, because faith is believing, conceiving, and releasing (speaking) until you receive what you desire. “Faith is being sure of what [you] hope for and certain of what [you] do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).


THE FAITH PROCESS


Faith begins with belief. Actually, faith in someone or something requires unquestioning belief that does not require proof or evidence from the one in whom you have faith. The New Testament word for faith, pistos, means “to believe another’s testimony.” Thus, faith requires you to function by believing first, instead of seeing or feeling first.


Faith requires you to function by believing first, instead of seeing or feeling first.


That often creates a problem, because faith requires putting your body under the control of your spirit. Your body says, “I’m not going to believe it until I see it.” But Yah says, “If you’re going to operate like Me, you aren’t going to see it until you believe it!” Likewise, the world says, “I’ll buy shares in your company when I see strong growth,” when Yah says, “Let’s get on now with building your business.” One operates by sight, the other by faith.


Living by faith also requires that you put your soul under the control of your spirit. Your soul governs your emotions, your will, and your mind. When you live from your soul, you allow information from your physical body to govern your decisions. Your soul says, “I’m unhappy because the outward circumstances of my life aren’t what I’d like.” Just because you don’t feel what Yah is saying to you, don’t refuse to believe that He knows what He is talking about.


After you believe Yah’s promises, you must begin to see (conceive) them in your life. Seeing and looking are very different. Looking regards the outward appearance, while seeing considers the existence of things that are not yet visible. Many look, but few see. Yah sees, and He requires that you see. He asks you to act as though you already have what you requested.


After you can see something, you have to release it. In Genesis, Yah looked at the darkness and saw light. Although the light existed, it was not made visible until Yah spoke it into being. The same thing happened in the life of a young girl who was visited by the angel Gabriel. Although she was engaged to be married, she had not yet known a man. Imagine her surprise when Gabriel told her that she would give birth to a son who was to be named Yahusha. Mary could have argued that this was impossible, but she calmly asked: “How will this be...since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34) By faith Mary believed the words of the angel— “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you”—and released the birth of Yahusha—“May it be to me as you have said.”


Yah is still sending angels to speak things that run contrary to our usual expectations. He says to men and women, “You will have a dream and it will come to pass.” Then He waits for our words of confirmation: “May it be to me as You have spoken.” But what you speak must follow what you believe. Words themselves have no power. Only when words are accompanied by belief can they release Yah’s desires for your life. The apostle Paul illustrated this when he spoke what was already in his heart:


It is written: “I believed; therefore I have spoken.” With that same spirit of faith we also believe and therefore speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Yahusha from the dead will also raise us with Yahusha and present us with you in His presence (2 Corinthians 4:13-14).


Faith is required of all who want to please Yah. Hebrews 11:6 warns us that “without faith it is impossible to please Yah, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him,” and Romans 1:17 says, “The righteous will live by faith.” You were created to live by faith. Yah established faith as the only system through which men and women can touch His power. Potential demands faith, and faith makes demands on potential.


Potential demands faith, and faith makes demands on potential.


Righteousness, which, in the Bible, means “to enjoy a right relationship with Yah,” is impossible without Yah’s act of salvation in Yahusha Hamachiach. Yahusha’ death on the Cross freed you from eternal death, which is the penalty for your sin. For those who have received new life in Christ, Yah renders a verdict of “not guilty.”


FAITH IS A REQUIREMENT, NOT AN OPTION


Faith is not an option for the Christian. It is a necessity. If Yah tells you to get moving, He doesn’t want you to stand around until you see the evidence that says you should get moving. He wants you to risk, simply because He is asking you to move.


In fact, faith is not an option for human beings in general. A person who lives on anything but faith is going to live a depressing life. He will be so consumed by his environment and the circumstances of his life that he will never venture beyond the known to release the vast potential inside him. Faith is the source of hope, and no man can live without hope. Faith is the fuel of the future and the energy of anticipation.


FAITH MAKES THINGS HAPPEN


Many people are wrecks because they try to live without faith. That’s unfortunate because the Scriptures are clear that faith in Yah is the prerequisite for receiving what you believe, conceive, and release.
Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours (Mark 11:24).


Faith is the catalyst that makes things happen. It lifts you above the outward evidence of your life and empowers you to bring light out of darkness. Remember, you will receive whatever you believe. If you expect trouble, you will get it. If you trust Yah and expect Him to work in the midst of your distressing circumstances, sooner or later you will see evidence of His presence.


Life without faith is foolish because life is not always what it seems. What you see or feel is not the whole story. Believe that things are going to work out.


Reject the garbage that discourages you by taking your eyes off Yah—“You’re never going to own a house. You can’t even pay this rent. How’re you going to afford a mortgage?”—and believe that you are going to make it. Make plans and, by faith, release your dreams by saying: “I know what I see, but I also know what I believe. I’m going to keep believing in my dreams, because all things are possible with Yah.” Praise Him that you don’t have to live by what you see. Believe in His promises and expect Him to move mountains for you (see Matthew 21:21).
Life is not always what it seems. What you see or feel is not the whole story.


If things aren’t working out for you, there’s probably something wrong with your believing, conceiving, or speaking. Stop being intimidated by evil influences or the wicked one. Because he doesn’t want you to live by faith, the evil one tries to convince you to believe wrong, conceive wrong, and speak wrong so there’s no way you can receive what you have believed. Refuse to believe his lies and be careful not to worry, about the criticisms and objections of others. If Yah is the source of your dream, people cannot destroy it. You can accomplish what Yah wills.


So get back to Yah’s Word and claim His promises. Make faith the daily foundation of your life and say, “Yah said, therefore I believe” until you start to see some differences. Above all, don’t give up.


Before long you’ll see the results of a life of faith. You’ll get up in the morning expecting it to be a good day because there’s nothing you and Yah can’t handle together. You’ll start the week believing Yah’s word and acting on His instructions. That’s living by faith. Nothing in this world can make you lose heart unless you allow it to.


THE TRAGEDY OF RELINQUISHING FAITH


Most people who are failures, are failures because they were so close to winning. Don’t let that happen to you. You don’t know how close you are to receiving the promise you have been waiting for. Just because things are getting worse doesn’t mean that Yah has not heard your request. The closer you get to victory, the harder you are going to have to fight. Often when things are the worst, you are close to receiving what you seek.


Set your pace and keep on trucking. Look for the positive in life and renew your voice of faith. Believe in Yah and in yourself. Say, “Yah, I’m on Your side, and You’re on mine. We are going to see this thing through because we are a majority.” Trust in the certainty that you can’t lose when you and Yah are in agreement, and bear in mind that Yah will reward you if you put Him above all else. Finally, commit yourself to believing, conceiving, and releasing (speaking) every day until you receive what you desire. That’s how Yah created you to function.


But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well (Matthew 6:33).


A life of faith is hard work that at times requires perseverance and patience, but you can’t live any other way. Faith is the basis upon which an abundant, satisfying life is built. It is an essential key to releasing all that Yah put in you to benefit yourself and the world for generations to come. Your potential needs faith to draw it out, because faith is the bucket that draws from the well of potential within you.


Faith is the bucket that draws from the well of potential within you.


PRINCIPLES


1. Yah gave you an eternal spirit with eternal potential.


2. Sin has robbed you of that potential because you are born spiritually dead.


3. Yah redeemed your eternal potential through the death of Yahusha.


4. You were designed to live by faith.


5. Faith is believing, seeing, releasing, and receiving.