A TRANSFORMED OUTLOOK ON LIFE

Genesis chapter 3













Today we are walking in: A Transformed Outlook On Life







Today we look to the word-MIND-H3824 lebab--mind, knowledge, thinking, reflection, memory









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





Leviticus 24:12




And they put him in ward, that the mind H3824 of the LORD might be shewed them.








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




Isaiah 26:3




Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind H3824 is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.








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





Lamentations 3:21

This I recall to my mind H3824, therefore have I hope.





Job 34:33

Should it be according to thy mind H3824? he will recompense it, whether thou refuse, or whether thou choose; and not I: therefore speak what thou knowest.




The kingdom’s history of “righteousness, peace and joy in the Ruach HaQadesh” is your own. Whenever Hasatan accuses you, saying, “You’re a sinner,” you can reply, “I was redeemed by the blood of the King-Son. He cleansed and washed away my wrongdoing.”




The book of Hebrews continues, “Let us draw near to Yah with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience.” Even our consciences are cleansed by the blood of our Redeemer. Again, if another person brings up your past, you can say, “You’re talking about someone who is dead. I’ve been raised in newness of life!” So the Governor teaches you your new kingdom history, for this is the will of the King for your life.




Paul wrote, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Your mind is to be transformed so that you will no longer have a mind-set filled with rebellion, guilt, depression, fear, confusion, and frustration, but rather righteousness, peace, and joy in the Ruach HaQadesh.




Remember that the Governor is the presence and nature of the kingdom of Yah on earth. This means that if you receive the Ruach HaQadesh, you should be able to say, as Yahusha did, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” We will explore our transition into the Governor’s culture in more detail in later teachings.




New Courage and Confidence




Yahusha’ disciple John taught first-century kingdom citizens what he had learned from the Master Teacher:




“You, dear children, are from Yah and have overcome [the kingdom of darkness], because the one who is in you [the Governor] is greater than the one who is in the world [Hasatan and his followers].” When the Ruach lives within you, heaven is your home country, and you have its authority and power. There is nothing or no one in the world who has more power and resources than the King. Therefore, you don’t need to be threatened by anyone on earth who tries to intimidate or harm you. Luke the physician recorded Yahusha’ teaching on this:




My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them is forgotten by Yah. Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows. I tell you, whoever acknowledges me before men, the Son of Man will also acknowledge him before the angels of Yah.




The fear of man is a snare to us as kingdom citizens because it will cause us to live by a mindset and standards other than the kingdom’s. We won’t be acting in authority and power but in worry and timidity. Paul wrote that the King has not given us the Ruach of fear but of power, love, and a sound mind. We can be composed in all circumstances because we know that the King lives within us through the presence of the Governor.




Reconnection to Life’s Purpose




When the Governor comes to live within a person, he helps connect him to the assignment for which he was born. The prophet Joel talked about old men dreaming dreams, young men seeing visions, and sons and daughters prophesying the King’s will. I define a dream as something you can see being accomplished in the future, even though you may not live to see it fully completed. A vision is something you can see to do, which you can complete in your lifetime.




Paul wrote, “For we are Yah’s workmanship, created in Hamachiach Yahusha to do good works, which Yah prepared in advance for us to do.” We are newly created when the Governor comes to dwell in us. We can therefore start over in the kingdom to do good works, which the King planned for us to accomplish even before we were born. The Governor gives back to older people the dreams for the future they thought they had lost. He gives young people visions for their lives to help them stop wasting their time and energy on useless things. He makes us all rulers in the realms of our particular giftings.




Some people mistake the meaning of the Governor’s presence in their lives. As we have seen, they think he came just to make them “feel good,” or that he came to give them abilities that they can use to draw attention to themselves. Instead, he came to give us a vision or a dream of something that only we can help accomplish, because he has given it to us as our special work on earth. He came to give us power so that this particular work can be realized.




In addition, you can be cleansed and receive the Governor, but not understand that he wants to give you power for living the kingdom life. You therefore spend all your time fighting against attitudes and desires that are contrary to the kingdom, instead of overcoming them through the authority and power of the Ruach, so that you can do the important work for which you were born. His power should work through you so you can show evidence that your life is under the influence of the kingdom. The Governor came to empower you for work. He is here to impact the earth for heaven through your vision or dream.




Communication with the Heavenly Government




Finally, but very importantly, the return of the Governor gives us the ability to communicate with the heavenly government. We can bring the kingdom of heaven to earth and have dominion over it only if we are receiving clear instructions from the King. A kingdom can function in delegated authority only if the purpose, will, and intent of the King are being transmitted to that delegated authority.




What the King intends for earth is to be transmitted by the Governor to his vice governors, and to be executed on earth through their rulership. Whenever the Governor is not present, or the communication of the Governor is ignored, the practical rulership of the King is absent on earth. Some presence of the government has to exist. This is why the Ruach HaQadesh is the key to the kingdom of heaven on earth. The Governor is the agent of the revelation of Yah’s mind to the earth through humanity’s dominion.




Access to the King




Let me try to illustrate how vital the Governor is to our communication with the King. In the colonial period in the Bahamas, if anybody, and I mean anybody, whether members of Parliament, local commissioners, or the bishop, wanted to go to Great Britain to see the queen, they couldn’t get close to her without going through the royal governor first. This was true even for the premier of the colony.




A similar process applies in our relationship with the King- Father. Some people think they can have access to the heavenly throne because of their level of education or how wealthy they are, or how much they have done for the poor. We can’t have an audience with the King-Father, however, unless we go through the King-Son, who opened the way for us by his substitutionary death, and unless we do so through the power of the Governor, who is our means of speaking with and hearing from the Father.




When you went to the governor in the Bahamas for permission to see the queen, the governor would send a message concerning you to England, and if the governor in Nassau cleared you, you were in. Likewise, when the King-Son clears you, and when you are relying on the Governor to communicate your requests and desires, you can go straight to the King-Father’s throne room in the inner courts of the palace. As the writer of the book of Hebrews wrote, “Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”




I’ve heard that when John F. Kennedy was the president of the United States, he was sitting in the Oval Office having a meeting with his cabinet. They were discussing the most dangerous situations in the world at that time, the Bay of Pigs issue with Cuba and the Soviet Union’s nuclear weapons. This was the most serious meeting they had held up to that point in the administration. The story goes that the door suddenly swung open, and a little boy ran across the room, around the cabinet members, and landed in the lap of the president. All the important members of the cabinet were suddenly silent. This little boy looked up at his father— the most powerful leader in the world—and said, “Daddy, who are these people?” And President Kennedy said, “These are my Cabinet, son.” The boy looked at this powerful group of men; then he pointed to his father and said, “This is my daddy.” At that moment, it didn’t matter who the president was meeting with. The son had complete access to the father. And the same is true in our relationship with our King-Father.




Hearing the Will of the King




When a king wanted to communicate with his citizens, the Governor was also involved in this process. For example, any time the queen came to the Bahamas to visit, she didn’t announce her visit directly to the people. She told the royal governor, and he told the people. In a similar way, whenever the King of heaven is going to do anything on earth, he communicates it through the Governor, who tells it to us. As Paul wrote, “Who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s Ruach within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of Yah except the Ruach of Yah.” The presence of the Governor in our lives enables us to hear and know the will of the King for us.




Hearing from the King is actually a very practical thing for a kingdom citizen, and was modeled for us by Yahusha. The Gospels tells us that Yahusha often went off by himself to hear the King-Father’s instructions. Prayer was his means of dealing with government business. You have to be able to receive instructions from the heavenly government before you can accurately represent it. Yahusha said to his disciples, “When you pray....” Prayer, therefore, is not an option; it is daily government communication. We need to ask the King, with the help of the Governor, “What do you want done today?” And we have to be ready to listen and respond.




Keeping in Right Relationship




Worshipping the King is another form of communication with the heavenly government. Many people have made worship into a ritual, when it’s really about keeping in right relationship with the King. It is a means by which we remain in constant connection and communion with our Sovereign and honor his government.




Worship protects us from establishing our own kingdoms on earth, rather than the heavenly government’s, because we acknowledge and confirm to him that his desires and will are paramount. We affirm that his government’s interests are the ultimate reason for our existence.




The significance of our connection to the kingdom through the Governor will become even clearer in coming chapters as we explore the nature and role of the Ruach HaQadesh and his impact on the culture of our individual lives, as well as the culture of earth.




The Nature of the Governor




A person left to himself will self-destruct.




We have seen that the presence of the Governor is essential for transforming the world into the kingdom of heaven. It is now vital that we consider in more depth the nature of the Ruach HaQadesh because, though the Governor is the most important person on earth, he is also the most misunderstood and ignored.




People who are not yet in the kingdom don’t understand the Ruach HaQadesh’s indispensable role in their lives because they’ve been led to believe that he is mysterious and unknowable. Or they think he is a kind of apparition because of our modern connotation of the word Ruach and the use of the term Holy Ghost for Ruach HaQadesh in the King James Version of the Bible. Even people who have received the Governor have misconceptions regarding who he is. I said earlier that some think he’s a sensation or a thrill whose purpose is to make them feel good. Let’s explore the nature of the Governor beginning with what he is not.




What the Ruach HaQadesh Isn’t Not an “It”




The Ruach HaQadesh is not an “it” or a “thing.” Some people refer to him as a nonpersonal object, saying, “Do you feel it?” or “Do you have it?” The Ruach HaQadesh is a person with a personality. We will discuss more of his personal characteristics in the next section.




Not a Universal “Force” or “Cosmic Mind”




The Ruach HaQadesh is also not a kind of force or cosmic mind that we can “tap into” to receive the power and knowledge of the universe. He is not the sum total of the consciousness of the inhabitants of earth. To some people, these metaphysical ideas have become synonymous with Yah’s Ruach. However, no one can control the Ruach HaQadesh or “siphon off” his knowledge or power. Neither is he part of our consciousness. He is a distinct Being who grants us knowledge and power when we have a relationship with the King and are yielded to the will of the kingdom. Instead of demanding it or taking it for granted, we are to be grateful for the power with which he works in our lives to further the purposes of the kingdom and to strengthen us as children of the King.




Not a Cloud or Mist




Some people think of the Ruach HaQadesh as just a kind of smoke or mist or cloud that comes in to a place and sometimes causes people to fall down on the floor. I’m not saying that there aren’t legitimate times when the Ruach HaQadesh will manifest his presence in a physical way, but I believe that people who are always looking for such manifestations are susceptible to imaginings and fabrications.




Rather than referring to the Ruach as a kind of ethereal mist, Yahusha talked about the Ruach using the word he. In fact, this statement of his could not be clearer:




But when he, the Ruach of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you.




Yahusha could have said, “When the Ruach HaQadesh comes.” He kept repeating the word he, however, as if he wanted to make sure we knew the Ruach HaQadesh is not just a force or cloud.




Not a Feeling or Sensation




The Ruach HaQadesh is also not just a “feeling.” Again, I think we have often relegated him to a kind of strange, goose-pimple- raising experience. I think part of the reason for this is that some people come to corporate worship experiences so pent up with frustration about their lives that, when they can’t take it anymore, but they sense an accepting environment, they run around screaming, roll on the ground, and call it the Ruach HaQadesh. They are simply releasing tension.




You don’t need to make noise to experience the Ruach HaQadesh. You don’t need loud drums and cowbells and screaming, shouting, and clapping. If you read the Bible carefully, most of the time when the Ruach manifested himself, it was in quietness, not feelings. The prophet Elijah had this experience:




A great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Most High, but the Most High was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Most High was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Most High was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”




Let me add this statement, however: The Ruach HaQadesh is not a feeling, but his presence can certainly affect your emotions as you experience his peace, joy, and comfort.




Who Is the Ruach HaQadesh? The Ruach HaQadesh Is Yah Extended




The most important thing we must know about the nature of the Ruach HaQadesh is that he is Yah. I like to use the term “Yah extended.” He is Yah extended to a person and/or situation to work the purpose and will of his kingdom in the person’s life or in the circumstance.




One with Yah




Earlier, we talked about the fact that Yahusha is fully Yah, even though he is also fully human. Yah the Son became Yahusha of Nazareth for the purpose of his redemptive task in the world. His dual nature never diminished His oneness and equality with the Father. The Scripture says that Yahusha, “being in the form of Yah, did not consider it robbery to be equal with Yah, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men.”




You don’t need to grasp for something that you already have. Yahusha is equal with Yah, even though he is distinct in personality and function from Yah the Father and Yah the Ruach. The Scripture tells us that Yahusha was sent from the Father through the Ruach. The heavenly messenger told Mary, the mother of Yahusha, “The Ruach HaQadesh will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of Yah.” And Yahusha spoke of his oneness with the Father, saying, “I and the Father are one,” and “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”




The word Father in relation to Yah doesn’t mean father the way one is related to a human father, or in the sense of some- one who is “greater” or “older.” Yah is not “older” than Yahusha Hamachiach. Yahusha is eternal, as Yah the Father is eternal. Rather, the word Father refers to Yah’s being the Source from which Yahusha was sent.




Likewise, the Ruach HaQadesh is Yah, and he is equal to the Father and the Son. John wrote in his gospel, “Yah is Ruach, and his worshipers must worship in Ruach and in truth.” Yahusha spoke of the Ruach as “another Counselor” who would continue his work on earth. So Yah is one, but he expresses himself in three distinct personalities and dimensions.




Yahusha told his disciples, “When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Ruach of truth who goes out from the Father....” Both Yahusha and the Ruach proceeded from the Father to accomplish the work that needed and still needs to be done on earth. Yahusha was sent by the Father to redeem us; the Ruach was sent by Yahusha to empower us. Yahusha was sent to restore us; the Ruach was sent to release us into a new kingdom life.




I like to describe the concept of the triune Yah by the analogy of water. Water, in its liquid state, is like Yah the Father; it is the natural source. If you were to take some water and freeze it, it would become solid ice. Ice is like Yahusha, the Word who became flesh; he was tangible, someone who could be seen, heard, and touched. If you were to take the same ice, put it in a pot, and heat it to boiling, it would become steam. Steam is like the Ruach HaQadesh, the invisible influence that generates power. Ice and steam can return to their original liquid state. All three are in essence water, although in different forms.