by BRON BARKLEY
THE THEME OF THIS DEVOTION IS:
Only by filling our cleansed hearts with the abiding presence of our LORD’S Spirit and Word can we avoid the re-contamination that seeks to ruin the redemptive work of God in our lives. The relationship between Torah and Gospel is clearly seen in this week’s study:
Deuteronomy 12:1-3 reads (JPS translation),
“These are the laws and rules which you must carefully observe in the land that the LORD, God of your fathers, is giving you to possess, as long as you live on earth. You must destroy all the sites at which the nations you are to dispossess worshiped their gods, whether on lofty mountains and on hills or under any luxuriant tree. Their down their altars, smash their pillars, put their sacred posts to the fire, and cut down the images of their gods, obliterating their name from that site.”
The related Gospel text in Luke 11:24-26 seq. (KJV translation, updated) goes deeper into the spirit of things:
“When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man, he walks through dry places, seeking rest; and finding none, he says, I will return unto my house whence I came out. And when he comes, he finds it swept and garnished. Then he goes and takes to him seven other spirits more wicked than himself; and they enter in, and dwell there: and the last state of that man is worse than the first.”
Ephesians 5:18 tells us,
“And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be [continually] filled with the Spirit.” The text continues to tell us in detail how we are to “be being continually filled” by:
•Speaking to ourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs;
•Singing unto the Lord, making melody in our hearts;
•Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
[NOTE: WE ARE COMMANDED TO DO ALL THINGS IN THE NAME OF JESUS OUR LORD AND MESSIAH!
THIS IS OUR PROPER SUBMISSION, AND IT IS OUR COVERING IN THE ETERNAL REALM.]
•Submitting ourselves one to another in the reverential fear of God;
•Wives and husbands living in relational harmony as a reflection of the perfect union between Messiah and his Bride.
This is focused and total consecration put into practice on all levels every day as personal habit. This week’s parashah begins with a profound statement in Deuteronomy 11:26:
RE’EH ANOCHI NOTEYN LIF’NEI’CHEM HAYOM
See, I set before you this day
BE’RACHAH UK’LA’LAH
Blessing and Curse
The blessing is in obedience. The curse is in disobedience.
But Messiah has become the curse for us so that we might not live from our own strength of determination but from the powerful outworking of his life that inhabits our hearts by faith, as it is written in Galatians 3:13-14, “Messiah has redeemed us from the curse of the Torah, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangs on a tree: “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Yeshua Ha’Mashiach; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.”
THERE IT IS! DO YOU SEE IT?
THE BLESSING IS THE GIVING OF “THE PROMISE OF THE FATHER”—THE PRECIOUS HOLY SPIRIT— WHOM WE RECEIVE THROUGH FAITH IN OUR LORD YESHUA THE MESSIAH.
Keep your house clean. Keep it filled with the Priceless Holy Spirit and with the Word of Christ. Obey Messiah Yeshua in all things. Live in Community with the people of God. Be at peace among yourselves, beginning with your own spouse.
Bless; and do not Curse.
