Spirit First

"We know only a dusting of the fringe of His garment."

I’VE HEARD it said learning the Word cannot replace the Spirit. To read the Word and not know the Spirit leads us into wrong doctrine. Israel’s place in salvation is an enormous one. More and more, I see they have something that the Gentile church lacks. The time we live in is now the fulness of the Gentiles, mentioned in Romans 11:25. We’re looking for it to come, but it cannot be “fuller” than it is now. What does this mean? We must seek the Spirit and hear. Still, too many are going by a dream, a “nudge”, a “feeling.” I have had those, and they got my attention. But how much I did not know then. God asks us to speak to Him in conversation and know Him first.

Man’s ideas about history sets an example. There are cultures described with great speculation and gaping inaccuracies. Only God knows what that object truly is, what it meant, and who held it. We can see ideas of the earth’s formation, drawn up by men’s minds. Some of them foolish. God’s Word IS our foundation, but without God in us, speaking to us clearly, to interpret it, we will get it wrong. And Jewish history, described in its pages, by the King of the Jews, who said, “Salvation is of the Jews (John 4:22),” cannot be discarded in His Presence. But that’s what we’ve done.

We’ve misappropriated prophecies as well, made them future events, and they were when they were written, but much time has passed and a great deal of them are fulfilled. We’ve turned prophecy into an industry, much of it repetitive. This is not God’s character at all. Much of it discouraging or political. Again, that’s not who He is. He is peace, comfort, healing. Protection, safety, deliverance.

Here is a Truth I’ve learned about the Spirit. He will help us teach from our place of ignorance. Even if we don’t understand certain principles of the Word, (our overuse of phrases like “the enemy” and “the devil” in warfare theology, for instance), He will guide us in speaking and teaching anyway. There are things I’ve written that, though true (He will not write lies), I would not write that way again. I can’t. I see things from His perspective now that I didn’t then.

I’m determined to come up higher and to let go of where I lack. This is what God hungers for. We know only a dusting of the fringe of His garment. How patient He is to love us as we are. How humbled we must be in His Presence, holding in our grasp the foundation of His people, that He has included us in. Not to replace them. Nor to have a mass Christian salvation ceremony of Judaism-renouncing Jews. But to see them fully, to fall in love with them as they are, to learn from them, for there is much to learn. And realize the God of grace has provided us with their Moshiach. Who died to fulfill their covenant, whether they call Him Jesus or Hashem.

Photo from Wikimedia Commons.


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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com