Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, November 6, 2021
Shabbat Shalom,
Hope 23 – God’s Ruach Empowers Our Hope by David Harwood
This meditation is going to concentrate upon the role of the Ruach ha-Kodesh in empowering our Hope. Let’s reemphasize this: Hope is important to persevere in this age. We need rightly directed Hope. God’s Ruach will help us.
Before you continue to read this, please pray along with Romans 15:13.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and shalom in trusting, so you may overflow with hope in the power of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. (Romans 15:13 TLV)
I find this to be amazing: What is true of the Father is true of His Son. What is true of the Father and the Messiah is true of His Spirit.
In the midst of controversy, our Messiah brought to the forefront His people’s ancient confession. When Yeshua was sincerely asked to weigh in on His perspective on what the most important command is, He earnestly responded and gave a straight answer.
Yeshua answered, “The first is, ‘Shema Yisrael, Adonai Eloheinu, Adonai echad. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.
‘And you shall love Adonai your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ (Mark 12:29–30 TLV)
I mention this because Hope has a relational context. Our Hope in God is the Hope we have in the One we love. Hope’s context is our love and worship of God. We praise what we love. We praise who we love. He who is worthy of our praise is the source of our expectation. Our God is trustworthy, therefore; we have Hope.
In the midst of discouragement, David wrote:
Hope in God, for I will yet praise Him (Psalm 43:5b TLV)
Our Creator imparts Hope through a revelation of what God is really like. He reveals that the One in whom we Hope is holy, so also is His Ruach. That communication encourages Hope. Hope is a righteous response to Adonai’s holiness.
Holiness is attractive. The seraphim are reported as having the highest view of God’s holiness. They were seen as using two of their six wings to actively hold them in place. Hovering, they maintained their position while the wind of awe-inspiring holy Presence proceeded from the enthroned God. They did not use their wings to fly away and flee in fear. They positioned themselves as close to the Creator as they could handle and stayed there, communicating with one another about the One they loved.
… I saw Adonai sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the Temple. Seraphim were standing above Him. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. One called out to another, and said:
“Holy, holy, holy, is Adonai-Tzva’ot!
The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:1–3 TLV)
Adonai’s moral holiness is the manifestation of His perfected love – love at its zenith. God’s moral holiness is so wonderful as to be inconceivable. His love goes past the point of comprehensible perfection. His love-holiness is empowered by, and expressed through, omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence. Toward His creation, the simple summation is this: Adonai is good.
A word about God’s goodness… His goodness is empowered by omnipotence, guided by wisdom, filled with omniscience, and is in every place all the time. His goodness is on a different level from anything we’ve ever known. God is good and His Ruach ha-Kodesh reveals that goodness. Therefore we have Hope.
One designation of the Ruach ha-Kodesh is this: He is called “Your Good Spirit”.
You also gave Your good Ruach to teach them. You did not withhold Your manna from their mouth and You gave them water for their thirst. (Nehemiah 9:20 TLV)
Teach me to do Your will, For You are my God; Let Your good Ruach lead me on level ground. (Psalm 143:10 TLV)
His Good Ruach instructs His people. His Good Ruach leads individuals.
Recall, Yeshua said that when we see Him we see the Father. When we see Yeshua we see the Ruach, too. God is Ruach (John 4:24). Yeshua is God-incarnate. Everything we love about the Messiah, that of which we are in awe, is true of His Ruach ha-Kodesh. He is the Son’s Ruach (Galatians 4:6).
This Good Spirit is the personal-aspect of the One God who communicates the reality of God’s goodness to us. This revelation of goodness enlivens our Hope and empowers us to keep that Hope alive.
Now, please reconsider this parting blessing from Paul.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and shalom in trusting, so you may overflow with hope in the power of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. (Romans 15:13 TLV)
We can join our faith to this benediction and confidently pray for the Ruach’s effective influence. Let’s explore this a bit further.
God’s Ruach’s influence is not divorced from the power inherent in His Word. Paul wrote that Scripture, referring to the Hebrew Scriptures, was divinely inspired (2 Timothy 3:16). The Greek (θεόπνευστος, theopneustos) means “God breathed”. It is a “compound of θεός and πνεῦμα”: “God”, and “Spirit-Breath”.
I find this difficult to express, so let me try it two ways… God, our Father’s, breath is the Person whose substance is a Spirit who is a Person. This Pneuma-Ruach-Spirit is the Breath God breathed into the written Word as it was being written and Who breathes into the disciple as it is being read.
Through the Scriptures, the disciple’s Hope is empowered (Romans 15:4). However, and this is important, the believer has this Ruach ha-Kodesh-Person, living inside them and it is an article of Biblical faith that He speaks and communicates with the followers of Yeshua.
The Ruach ha-Kodesh, Himself, can directly empower, and He can also increase the power of the already empowered soul. It is like the dynamic described in John 1:16 – “grace-on-top-of-grace”. Like “grace-upon-grace” there is power-upon-power, and God loves us and wants our experience of Hope to increase. He does this by His Ruach through the Word. He also does this in a way that is, although connected, distinct from the Word. God can empower our Hope through the direct influence of the Ruach ha-Kodesh.
The Ruach ha-Kodesh is called “the Ruach of His Son (Galatians 4:6b).” He has always been relational. He has always communicated. Ruach empowered Hope is relational, not a mere force. The Spirit communicates His anticipation to our hearts. Remember, this is God’s Ruach. Like the Father, the Ruach knows the future. The Hope-anticipation He imparts is based upon the knowledge of God’s purposes, plans, and power which shall produce a holy-good-outcome.
Hope follows faith. The Ruach ha-Kodesh regenerates and strengthens our inner-being. He also gives manifestations of enabling favor (grace) to the believing community. One of these manifestations of the Spirit is the gift of faith.
Hope is empowered by faith. When faith is the result of the Ruach ha-Kodesh’s gift it inspires Hope. Empowered faith is the foundation of supernaturally strengthened Hope. Hope proceeds from the Faith anointing.
The following small section of Scripture is not oriented towards Hope, but Hope follows the fulfillment of these verses. Look at what Yeshua said.
But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; but whatever He hears, He will tell you. And He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. Everything that the Father has is Mine. For this reason I said the Ruach will take from what is Mine and declare it to you (John 16:13–15 TLV).
He will disclose to us that which is to come. Through the Ruach’s communication we get to anticipate what is coming. That is HOPE.
I’ve prayed and sung this benediction scores of times.
Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and shalom in trusting, so you may overflow with hope in the power of the Ruach ha-Kodesh. (Romans 15:13 TLV)
Please turn Romans 15:13 into a pattern for prayer. As you petition believe you are praying in God’s will. That understanding increases your faith and Hope.
John wrote:
This is the confidence which we have before Him, that, if we ask Now this is the confidence we have before Him—that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15And if we know that He hears us—whatever we ask—we know that we have the requests we have asked from Him. . (1 John 5:14–15 TLV)
Let us love our good God and let us love the goodness of God. The awareness of His holiness can inspire our Hope. Let us read the Scriptures expecting the Ruach ha-Kodesh to empower us through them. Let us expect the Good Ruach to impart Hope to our souls.
Daily Bread, reading plan by Lars Enarson (https://www.thewatchman.org/)
Sat 6-Nov-2021 2nd of Kislev, 5782 Parashat Toldot
Ge 28:5-9 Mal 1:1-2:7 Ro 9:1-16