Backward Teaching

From out of the archives of my life and memories comes this little gem of dayz gone by:

Backward Teaching 

The Holy One calls to me this morning.  My life is full of energy brought by a group of little people known as "grandchildren".  It is one thing to have them visit once in a while and another to wake up to their delightful presence each morning.  Circumstances have opened this great opportunity to share life with them.

Today the Holy One speaks about the importance of raising our children in the admonition of the Lord.  It is a huge undertaking and responsibility especially with the world and all its seduction calling us into the web of carnal fast living and spiritual apathy.

As I consider the religious teaching of my own life years ago, I hear Him say, "Focus on teaching about relationship first".  

I was raised up under the generation that taught "hell fire and damnation" and the "wrath of a Holy God".   I often marvel at the sweet relationship I now have with the Lord and wonder about all that "inspired" fear I was presented with as a child.

I know that respect is born out of fear but there is a distinction between good and bad fear, and wonder if we don't get the two confused in our rearing of our children.

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son".  "But if you cross Him and disobey His rules He will send you to hell in a "heartbeat."  What a confusing message that comes out of our attempts to raise our children to "do what is right".

Many parents choose to throw away the threat and promote grace, and others use the threat and fail to teach forgiveness.  The Holy One today, stresses the importance of teaching relationship that the Lord longs for with His beloved people no matter what the age.  

As I look around at families in crisis within the Body of Christ, it is sad that the divorce rate is as high within the Church as outside in the world.  What that tells me is that many are missing the entire point that Christianity is about relationship and not rules.

If Jesus said, "They will know you are My disciples by your love for one another" (John 13:35), then many have never understood what it means to be a follower of Christ.  Jesus was not referring to just the 12 when He made that statement but rather to all who would come to know Him as Lord over the course of history and time. 

We set about to teach the rules of engagement He taught us when He came in the flesh, but when our lusts and desires drive us to "break" the rules we fall back on grace and the liberty to get what we want despite what the Word of Holiness has to say on the matter.

We break our vows, trash our covenants, then worship as if that covers a multitude of our sins and we even re-define our sins and call them weaknesses or failures or little pet names that make the obvious violations of Holiness somehow acceptable. 

The problem with our Christian lives boils down to a problem with our Christ relationship.  We promote the rules but forsake the rule Giver, and in that we miss the entire point of the rules all together. 

Our relationship with Christ through the indwelling Holy Spirit is the only power we have over our flesh, its drives, its demands, its depravity.  The extent to which we falter in our flesh is an expose of our real relationship with Jesus.

If we promote the rules without first learning about loving the rule Giver, we will fail in our obedience to the "rules". Jesus said, "If you love Me, you will obey My commands".  There is a Sacred Romance to be enjoyed with the Lord Himself.   At every age there is a precious and priceless lesson to be taught and learned about that Sacred Romance with the King. 

Our children learn through Disney stories all about the concept of living happily ever after.  They get a picture of "the beauty and the beast" and the sacrifice of love.  They understand the "damsel" in distress, the 'knight" in shining armor, the "dragon" and the "rescue".   But do they really grasp that these are a picture of God's love, the intrigue of His kingdom, His invasion into our struggles and His rescue of our hearts?

If these are just pictures of human love and relationship, life quickly despoils the dream.  The truth is that these are all elements of the Sacred Romance the Lord wants with each one of us.

I know the King is coming.

I know His kingdom awaits us.

I know He has prepared a place for me.

I know I will live with Him for all eternity.

I know the King and His name is Jesus.

The Sacred Romance comes first, then the rules make sense. It's a backward teaching that promotes the rules before sharing the delight of a relationship.  And where teaching our children is concerned, we cannot share what we do not have.

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?

The Spirit is Calling. Can you hear Him?

As we enter this new year 2026, realizing it may be the year the Lord comes to rescue His Bride, I am filled with the need to be in the greatest intimacy with the Holy Spirit.  His Presence is what brings peace to anything we may encounter in this sacred time before Yeshua comes, and we are supernaturally uplifted to join Him in the air according to His Word in 1 Thessalonians 4:17-18.

1Th 4:17

Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord

1Th 4:18

Therefore comfort one another with these words.  

For those who have a hard time believing in the "supernatural" and may doubt the validity of these words, Jesus, when He walked the earth, came to show us the Father and in His love brought the Kingdom of Heaven here complete with "supernatural" signs of His deity.  Why would we expect anything less from Him today?  If this scripture has been given, it will be fulfilled in HIS time. 

As we wait for that glorious event and experience, and as we have trusted Him: The One God sent to save us from the penalty we all would suffer (eternal death) to bring us into His eternal Kingdom of life as it was intended before the fall, we have been given the Gift of His Holy Spirit as a seal and promise of that life to come. 

I recently found a very special worship song from the 1970's that speaks to an intimacy that the Lord wants us to have with Him and what drew me into the Sacred Romance I have with Him today. The Link below will take you to that song and here are the lyrics that drew me.

The Spirit is calling.   Can you hear Him? 

       (359) Come Away - The Maranatha Singers | LYRIC VIDEO - YouTube 

Come Away

Song by

Maranatha! Music

Don't you be in such a hurry

Cause it only leads to worry

There's a time to work

But there's a time to pray

Try to find a quiet place

To hear His voice and seek His face

Can you hear the Spirit calling, Come away.

Come away, come away

Come and spend some time with Me,

Come away

Let your heart and mind be stilled

Let your empty cup be filled

Come and spend some time with Me,

Come away.

Are you sinking in your sorrow?

Are you worried about tomorrow?

Are the pressures of this life too hard to bear

If you cast your cares on Him

He'll give a perfect peace within

Can you hear the Spirit calling, Come away.

Hear Him say, Come away

Come and spend some time with Me

And my love will set You free

Come and spend some time with Me,

Come away.

Happy New Year 2026

2026 is finally here and this New Year has come with celebration and hopes, of a new season of great possibilities.

Could it be that this promise in God's Word will come to pass in 2026?

1 Thessalonians 4:17, for on that day (of His coming), it is written:  "For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a rousing cry, with God's Shofar; those who have died united with Christ will be the first to rise, and those who are left still alive will be caught up in the clouds (Raptured) to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will always be with the Lord.  So, encourage each other with these words".

I happen to believe the Holy Spirit is calling us through these words written long ago for this generation.  But can we hear Him? If so, how must we live in a way pleasing to Him in light of so great a promise? 

2025 was marked by a shift and move away from the familiarity I was accustomed to, and it ended with a new duty station and a nudge by the Holy One to engage in a study of the Book of Revelation.  

In all the studies I have done in all the books of the Bible, I have never taken the time to study the last book of the New Testament, and the last one that completes the cannon of scripture; line upon line, chapter and verse, word by word with the foundation of culture and context and with regard to the audience to whom it was originally given. 

This was a book written by a Jew for the Jews of the day who were in effect "Born Again" believers in Jesus as Messiah.  We know them today as Messianic Jews. The symbols John saw and wrote down were not as unfamiliar to his audience as they are mysterious to us today.  We must not make the mistake of trying to understand these symbols according to our modern-day experience of things created by and through human imagination and modern technology.  

I have listened to different teachers, expound on the mystery, with opinions and suppositions, commenting on bits and pieces but never sought to have the overview from an expository teaching method, something that provides a deeper understanding of the symbols John was told to write down as things he "saw".   

Yahweh does not leave us in the total dark, without understanding of His word, but gives His students clues and cues as to His plan and purposes for Humanity.  

As it pertains to the Body of Christ also known as His Bride, the next event with no other prophetic mile markers to be met, will be when He comes to pick us up as He promised before He left planet earth.  We have understood this as described in Paul's first letter to the Thessalonians. 1 Thessalonians 4:17:  "For the Lord Himself will come down from Heaven with a rousing cry, with God's Shofar; those who have died united with Christ will be the first to rise, and those who are left still alive will be caught up in the clouds (Raptured) to meet the Lord in the air and thus we will always be with the Lord.  So, encourage each other with these words".

The reference to those who have "died united with Christ" was Paul addressing the concern of the early church who themselves were expecting to be raptured at any moment, that their beloveds would surely be taken up to be with Yeshua as well.  

The importance of this promise cannot be underestimated even as we wait in anticipation of that glorious day.  How we choose to live is influence by our belief in the imminent evacuation of the Bride of Christ before the 7-year tribulation period and before the "return of Yeshua". By our lifestyle we will attest and witness to the world around us the truth about our God and His eternal plans for us.  

A "witness" to the truth is designed to produce a response: conviction or condemnation.  It is not up to us what the outcome of our witness will be in the lives of those around us, but to be sure we must be a faithful witness to the life and existence of our Holy God and Savior Yeshua.  If conviction occurs it will lead to repentance and to ultimate forgiveness in salvation.  If not convicted, rebellion continues and will lead to judgement and ultimate punishment. 

Elsewhere in Scripture we are told about the influence of the lifestyle of a remnant.

Ezekiel 14:22, as Yahweh planned a disaster for Israel, and as they suffered His rebuke, He tells Ezekiel, "There will still be left a remnant in it (Israel) to be brought out, including both sons and daughters.  When they come out to you and you see their "way of life" (Lifestyle), and how they act, you will be consoled over the calamity I have brought upon Jerusalem, over everything I have done to it.  vs 23 "You will Understand that it was not without good reason that I did what I did".

Let this be a constant reminder to us that our lifestyle is to bring glory and honor to Yahweh all our days here on earth until this chosen generation is raptured by His supernatural intervention and for such a time as this, or via the temporal death of our physical bodies.  

We are not to fear anything but being outside of His grace and alienated from our Savior, Jesus, THE ONE who died that we might live with Him, eternally in the New Heaven and New Earth that is to come.  

As the days unfold according to the prophecy in the book of the "Revelation of Jesus the Christ" given to His disciple, John the Beloved, let us learn to sit at His feet and hear His voice speaking His will for us, personally as given to us by the Holy Spirit of Truth.

 

It is my firm belief that Jesus will make good on His Promise to rescue us BEFORE the great and terrible "day of the Lord" when truly all hell will break loose; when evil will be unleashed because the One restraining it will leave the earth realm and bring all of us who are indwelt by Him with Him to the place where "we will always be with the Lord."

We are to choose this day "Whom we will serve" and that means modeling a lifestyle of love and loyalty to our Savior and Lord Jesus.  What needs to change in my life so others will have an accurate picture of our God?  What needs to change in yours for that same end?

The Holy Spirit is calling.  Can you hear Him?