Rabbi’s Reflections – Saturday, February 1, 2020
Shabbat Shalom,
Pillar Four: The Kingdom is Expressed in a Life of Power – part 3
What? Not enjoying all the power you would like? Join the club. Let’s call our club the “Creative Dissatisfaction Club.” To be simply dissatisfied is to deny Yeshua’s finished work. This is a form of unthankfulness.
But to be “creatively dissatisfied” is to not consider ourselves to have “arrived.” But rather to see ourselves as continuing to grow and progress. We must keep moving down the road that leads to New Jerusalem. This is the concept of “Growing To Maturity” (Dan Juster has a book by that name).
1 Peter 2:2 As newborn babes, long for pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow toward salvation—
Let me back up a little and ask a question. What is your motivation? I’ll give you a minute to think of the answer. Another way to ask the same question is, “What is your ‘Why’?” (See “Start With Why” the book by Simon Sinek.)
We are talking about seeking the power of God in maturity. God, Himself, gives us the answer. 1 Corinthians 12:31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And still I show you a far better way. And what is that “better way?” 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter. We have to be love motivated (because that is God’s motivation, and we are called to be like-minded.
Hear the words of Yeshua… John 13:35 By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” I’m using this verse here to emphasize a truth. I’m trying to correct an error. We get so focused on power that we lose the value of love.
God is love. (1 John 4:8b) Everything God has and does is love motivated. The subject is the power of God, but we can’t deal properly with the power of God until we are right with the love of God. I mentioned alignment a few weeks ago. This is part of it. Let’s discuss it further next week. Shabbat Shalom friends.