Clean

You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you.  Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. ~John 15:3-4

Yahshua the Word has been spoken to us, cleansed us. And as we abide in Him, we bear fruit. 

Abide—from a, denoting forward motion and bidan “to wait, remain, dwell”, the root of which is bheidh, which originally meant “to command” and “to trust” and is also the root word of FAITH.

Intercession

Intercession--noun. When you hold onto the Word for someone else because they can't or don't know to right now.

Worship

Focus on the Good:

Sometimes in life, people are faced with very difficult things. Things like death of loved ones, illnesses that are said to be incurable, rejection, hatred, fear. These things can seem an ocean of overwhelming ugliness in this world, and it can be easy to think that that is all there is.

People can try to distract themselves from these things with the good things in life. But few people really understand what that is or means. One cannot distract themselves from evil. One cannot look at a good thing that is on the same level as the evil thing and survive it.

We must focus on the good, and the good that we focus on must be far more real than the evil that we see in this world. Deeper than beautiful things like rainbows, puppies, or the kindness of a child. Deeper than nature or songs or poems. Deeper than the most awesome experiences or the most breathtaking views. The good that we focus on must be the ultimate good, the underlying foundational good upon which creation was built. Yahweh Himself.

It's not even things about Him or what He has done for us. It is simply to look deeply, forever, into the eyes of the Father who formed creation by His own Word: Himself. We can never look away.

And then, all we see in creation is simply a reflection of what is in His eyes. But He sees only truth. And the evil and sorrow and malice that can appear so real in this world are suddenly seen for what they are: illusion.

As we walk through illusion, firmly in reality, we can have joy in the midst of sorrows and peace in the midst of pain. And, marvelously, we please Yahweh, for we live in faith.

And our lives become worship to Him.

Relative Size

This is a picture of the Earth. The pale blue dot in the topmost sunbeam. It was taken from a spacecraft 4 billion miles away from Earth at the time.

That small, blue dot is Earth. And on that small blue dot is every human, vast landscape, forest, mountain, ocean, plant, bird, beast, hope, dream, and plan.

And bigger than it all is Yahweh. Bigger than the Earth and everything on it. Bigger than the sunbeams. Bigger than the whole of this picture. Bigger than the universe. And yet not separate from the universe.

We must have faith to see, but we must see to have faith.

Most of the world is looking at things through a pair of binoculars. These are perpetually held up to one’s face and distorting their perception of the world. The problems seem to be much larger and more terrifying than they actually are, and the beauties of this world, which are so much bigger than the ills, cannot be seen at all in their entirety as the binoculars only allow someone to see certain parts of the whole at a time.

But in reality, the whole is much bigger than that piece one can see through the binoculars. Goodness is much greater than pain. And when, by faith, we remove the binocular eyes, we can see truth and judge creation with wisdom and righteousness.  

Decide

Decide is a word that means "to cut off."

So when we decide to believe the Truth, we cut off the lie.

Sometimes it's that simple.

Recognize

There's a reason the word for sending people out ahead of the greater army into an enemy territory is called "reconnaissance."

The root word of reconnaissance is "recognize." Recognize comes from words that mean "again" (re) and "to know" (cognoscere.) So to recognize is to know again.

But once you know something, you can walk in it. This is true in the word "righteousness." The word "righteous" comes from "rightwise" which can be traced back to mean "to rule, lead straight, put right, move in a straight line" and "way, manner, wise." So righteousness is the directed way of wisdom. But wisdom is a word that can be traced back to mean "to see, to know."

Recognize also, from the 15th century, meant "to  resume possession of land."

Moses sent out spies on a reconnaissance mission to the Promised Land. Of the twelve spies who were sent out, only two recognized the land. Only two knew again that which Yahweh had always claimed to be theirs. Only two actually walked in and dwelled in the Promised Land.

Promise comes from root words meaning "to send before." Joshua and Caleb, the two spies, recognized the promise. They had seen it before, and they remembered. They knew. They were sure it was Yahweh's provision for them for they had faith. They were aware (the root word of faith.) And so, by faith, they claimed what was theirs, resuming possession of the land that had always belonged to them even as it belongs to the Father who is One with all of His creation.

Ultimate Faith

Yahweh created Himself. Creation was one with Yahweh, and so, when Adam sinned and caused the world to die, so did He.

In fact, Yahweh placed His life in Adam’s hands, literally. This is the ultimate faith. For when Yahweh did so, He knew that Adam could and would kill Him, but He also had the faith that He would be able to perform resurrection.

Yahweh, in some way, never separated Himself from creation. What creation went through, Yahweh went through. When Adam, by sin, killed creation, he might as well have taken a knife and murdered Yahweh as well. So that Yahshua dying for creation was not an event that took place four thousand years after the fall of man, but was a simultaneous occurrence that only physically manifested years later on a cross in Israel.

It was creation that separated itself from Yahweh, not at the point of death, but at the point of resurrection. For all have died, but not all have yet been resurrected. When Yahweh allowed Himself to fully bind with creation, He knew it would be the only way to keep creation whole, to give it any chance of survival. For He knew that when He resurrected, so would all of creation that was bound to Him. And so, it truly was ultimate faith, for Yahweh had enough faith not only to resurrect Himself, but to resurrect us all.