Hey everybody! I hope y'all are doing good. I don't know who all is going to
catch me live because I know it is very late, but this is just what ended up
happening. So I was actually gonna get on before the Zoom meeting and then ended
up that there was too short of amount of time between when I was gonna start the
live when my Zoom teaching started. I wasn't teaching, I was listening to a
teaching and so I thought, no, I don't want to cut it short for y'all and I
just wanted to be able to, you know, be in a state of rest and just be
able to speak, you know, as the Lord as the Lord led and not cut it out. So
anyway, so for those of you who can't catch me live, hopefully you enjoyed the
replay and always feel free to ask questions in the comments, you know, if
anything that I'm saying, you know, brings up any questions or write them
down and then we can talk to them, talk about them on Thursday or whatever. Also,
just to mention, Carrie had gotten online and talked about the
fact that she and I had been discussing some things this afternoon. We just went
back and forth over a Facebook Messenger because I just reached out and I
said, so how you doing? And then she said, well, you know, what's going on? She said, but I'm okay.
I'm okay. I'm like, no, you're not. Why? Because I'm a human and every woman, every
human says, I'm doing good. There's all of this stuff, but I'm fine and we're really
not fine. So I knew that code because I've used that code, those code words
before. So anyway, I wanted to check on her, make sure she's okay and that's when
she explained, you know, a bit more in depth of, hey, this is what I'm going
through and whatever. And I just wanted to encourage her is, hey Steph, I
just wanted to encourage her that, hey, you know, we can enter into a state of
rest literally at any point because rest is the state that we're supposed to live
in regardless of what activities it is that we're doing, regardless of whether
it is even in a relationship. This is not her issue because you heard what
she was talking about, you know, the thing of like just being tired, you
know, her son wasn't sleeping and then she felt that she was behind on things
and whatever. So whether it is things like housework, taking care of family or
even something that we think of as a lot more, not critical, but kind of, I
don't know, has a tendency to kind of grab our soul and feel very emotionally
disturbing like conflict in a relationship or something. You know, we're
in the middle of it. In all of those places, we can always abide in this house.
I'm so glad, Steph. I love that you feel like you're a hummingbird because I
think that they're just the prettiest, neatest little creatures. You know, they
beat 120, their wings beat what? 120 times? I don't know. Is it in a second? I mean,
it's ridiculous how fast those things beat. But yeah, they move very, very
quickly, but they're such delicate, pretty little things. But anyway, so
regardless of what situation that we're in, we can always abide in a state of
rest and that's what God desires. He desires us to always abide in a state of
rest. It doesn't matter. Remember that rest is a state of being. It is not
activity or inactivity. It has nothing whatsoever to do with it. The reason why
we tend to connect the two is because... I'm sorry. Let me just... I know that
Amy was wanting... Oh, I don't know. Is this how I can find it? Yes.
Here we go. There we go. Because I know that Amy was watching for the live and I
wanted to make sure that she grabbed it that she found it. So, the reason that we
believe that inactivity is rest and the reason that we associate it... associate
the two together is because we have not understood how to abide in that state
until... until we stop. Oh, hey Amy! Until we stop and then we then stop all of our
activity and then we and then we're finally able to move a bit more into a
state of being called rest. So, that's why we tend to associate it with inactivity
because it's the only way in which we've gotten ourselves to finally stop being
so stressed and so we think that's how we've started to associate rest with
with inactivity but it has nothing whatsoever to do with it. It's just that
it's easier for us to land into that state of being.
If we stop doing, we tend to, while we're being active, we tend to pull ourselves
out of a state of rest and tend to pull ourselves into a state of stress. That's
why we associate rest with inactivity, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with it.
And so I just wanted to point that out. So we're to, we're to abide in a state of
rest and regardless. So what I was talking to her about and what she had
mentioned that she had found encouraging, I told her, I said, you know I think that
this is great that we're having this conversation because it lets me know
that I should talk to other people about it and let everybody else know, you know,
basically the same thing that I told her. And maybe we can talk about this in
greater depth at some other time, but just basically the idea that get, and she
mentioned this in her live, to get rid of our expectations. That we expect that
well my child shouldn't be doing this. I shouldn't be up at 3 in the morning. I
should be getting sleep. I should be getting this much done around the house
today. My laundry shouldn't be piling up. I should be doing the dishes
directly after we eat. These are not details that she and I talked about. I'm
just coming up with, coming up with things that tend to bother us women. I
should be doing such-and-such in my business. I should have reached out to so
many X number of people today. And if we list all of these, if we come up with
this list of expectations, whether or not it's meeting our own standard of measure
or we believe that we found it somewhere in the Bible and that God is holding us
to it, regardless we've set up some kind of a standard of expectation and if we
fall short of that expectation or we're concerned that we're going to fall short
of that expectation, then it causes a lot of stress and it pulls us out of a state
of rest and out of a state of being at rest. And so the very
important thing to do is to release all of our expectations. Just completely
release them and just realize, just stop fighting whatever situation
that we're in thinking, it should not be like this. We need to stop doing that. We
need to stop looking at everything around us and saying, I shouldn't be like this
or this situation shouldn't be like this or my child shouldn't be like this.
This shouldn't be. God desires something different. We need to let that go. And
that's one of the steps that we can take to release, which moves us into a state
of rest, regardless of what it is that we're doing, is to let go of that
expectation. It's very, very difficult, especially at all of our ages, because
we're not, you know, we're not in elementary school, we're not
teenagers, we're not new to this world. We've been around it a long time and we
have developed these terrible habits and we remember everything that our mothers
told us. For some of it, you know, those of you who are mothers, you remember all
the things that you've been telling your children and now we have to shift that
paradigm. Now we have to totally change the way that we view the world and we
view ourselves. Exactly, shoulds are self-judgment. Yeah, one of the things
that began to break me of this is when I finally heard a teaching that
said, you know, in the Lord there's no more shoulds and shouldn'ts. That
really bothered me. I was so much in the state of, so much in a performance
mentality, I thought, I've got no grid for that. I have got no grid for the fact
that in God there's no shoulds and shouldn'ts. So, that's something that we
can move into, you know, later, but it was just something that kind of
whet my appetite for the possibility that there was something more and
greater in regard to an amount of freedom that I hadn't yet stepped into.
So, anyway, let's see. I don't know, maybe I should just be really loud, Amy. I don't
know, maybe that's my issue. Okay, so I will try. I have my volume up, but that
really shouldn't affect anything. I don't know what's going on. The only thing I
can think of is to unplug my phone. Does that help at all?
That help or is it just still the same, the volume? I'm afraid I don't know what
else to do. There's nothing obstructing it being able to take in my voice, so
hopefully it's better. Sorry, I'll try to speak loud. Okay, so as far as the Two
Trees, I was very excited about this teaching. I've been talking to y'all about it
for almost a week saying that, hey, we're gonna talk about this, and so finally
we're here. And, of course, remember, all of these things, I've been talking about
that.
Hey, we're going to have this teaching and this is what's coming up next, but do
you notice how it's been almost a week? And I'm like, we're fine. We haven't even
gotten to it yet. I allowed other things. I allowed the Lord to just kind of guide
in the Spirit and y'all would bring up questions. I'm like, okay, and I would just
sense in the Spirit, okay, Lord, which one's important to do? And He's like,
answer their question. You know, let's just allow, you said, Ashley,
allow yourself to kind of flow with the Spirit in this. Again, just a state
of rest. I don't have to be rigid that, well, I had this idea and I thought this
would be helpful for everybody and it needs to go in this order. No! Just
operate your business and the way that you interact with other people and what
it is that you offer to other people of yourself, whether it is or is not in a
business setting, do it just from a place of rest. Just let everything flow.
Okay, got better when you got closer. Okay, good.
Alright, so for the tree of life versus the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Okay, so remember that back there in the garden, in fact, let me just
pull that up for us just really quick. Remember back there in the garden that
Satan, the very first question that Satan asked Eve was, I know all of this
but I'm just gonna read it instead of just saying it out loud, just saying it
from memory. Okay, remember that the very first question that he asked the
woman is, did God really say? That's the first question he asked was, he asked her
about something that caused her to, trying to get her to stop and question
what it is that she believed about what it is that God said. So remember,
so notice the two most important factors in there. What she believed about what
God said. Those two things. So the Word of God and then what it is that we believe
about it. That is the, that's the foundation of everything. Even Satan
knows that. So the first time we're introduced to the potential of something
in the world, in this perfect world that God created, going off track is we have
those two things. That the Word of God was being questioned based off of what
it is that we believe about it. That is what everything comes down to and so
it's something that we're going to discuss later is the fact that sin, all
sin is unbelief. That is what sin is. Now from unbelief stems other things. Stems
from the fact that we're gonna reach for something because we think we don't have
it and all of that. But the very basis and root of everything is unbelief. So
Satan knew full well the first thing that I've got to get her to question is
whether or not she believes what God said. In other words, believes his word. So
that's the foundation of everything. So the woman said, you know, we can eat from
fruit. We can eat fruit from the trees of the garden. But did God say
you must not eat from the tree that is in the middle of the garden and you must
not touch it. But God did say. I was thinking that sounded weird. But God did
say you must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden. You
must not touch it or you will die. So it's fascinating. You think of how many
trees that there are. How many trees would there be in the garden? That's a
lot of trees. God said there was one she couldn't touch or one that she couldn't
eat from. One. So you notice how interesting it is. I don't know
that I would necessarily say that it caught her attention. But she pointed out
we could eat from anything except this one. So do you see how we've
narrowed our vision and created our entire world around the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil when we have an entire garden to eat from? So we
believe we've confused later on where I think it was I think that
this idea was first introduced in the New Testament where Jesus talks about
the fact that the way the Lord is narrow but then the way to to hell or I don't
remember how he worded it is really really wide. And so we tend to think oh
my goodness you know it's so much that there's so much more of the world and so
much more what it is that is out there is is sinful and it's only a few things
that are good. That it's the opposite. It is the exact opposite. We have not
understood that passage correctly. We can see from the garden that what God
created is huge and that's anything that is not of him that is an
is of unbelief and anything that is born from that is very, very, very small.
The universe and the spiritual principles are abundant and God gave that to us.
We have switched them and we have thought that the world of sin and everything that
it is that wants to pull us into sin is what makes up the majority of the world and makes
up the majority of what it is that we should be defending ourselves from and being careful
of and operating in spiritual warfare against.
We think that what it is that God offers us is so small and is so narrow and is not abundant.
We look at sin and we look at everything that the world has to offer and we think, oh my
word, that's abundance and instead I'm going to be a good little martyr and I'm going to
reduce my life to this.
It is the opposite.
God created a huge garden and it could have eaten out of anything except the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil.
We focused our world down to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and made that our
whole focus, which fills up our world, which pushes out our knowledge and understanding
of the abundance that God created and so we can't see it.
We just think that that world is very large.
Yes, destruction.
The way of destruction is wide.
What he did, what the serpent did, is he did the same thing with Eve that he tested Christ
with in the wilderness.
He tested the first Adam, because remember Eve was of the first Adam.
She came out of the first Adam.
And then of course it wasn't until Adam ate of the fruit, even though Eve did as well,
it wasn't until Adam ate of the fruit that all of a sudden everything changed.
Satan tested the first Adam in the exact same way that he tested the second Adam, Jesus,
in the wilderness.
He tested their belief of what God had said about their protection, their provision, and
their placement or their position.
In other words, their identity.
Those are the three things, and we won't get into all of that detail, but I just wanted
to mention that and y'all can go study it on your own.
Those are the three things that Satan tempted Adam and Eve, the first Adam, with and those
are the exact same things that you can find in the three tests that Satan tempted Jesus
with.
I think the very first one was his provision, which would be on the bread, and then I think
that the next one was his protection, and then I think the protection, jumping off the
temple, and God says that he's going to send his angels to protect you so that your feet
doesn't even hit a stone, and then the third one was his identity.
That's what it is that Satan tempts all of us with, is those things.
Did God really say, and Jesus did what Eve and Adam did not do, which is he repeated
God's words back to Satan.
He's like, God said, God said, God said, period.
The point, honestly, was not that he was quoting scripture.
The point is that he was quoting God's word, his living and active word.
We keep thinking that, oh my goodness, Satan comes against us, we need to quote scripture.
Sure, if scripture's the word of God too, you can speak it, but it wasn't scripture
that Jesus was pointing out, it was word of God, which comes forth out of him.
So I wanted to mention that, that's what the serpent was tempting Eve with.
So then he, of course, he has her start questioning, did God really say?
So it's really fascinating what Eve did, and to me, it's always fascinating the process
that the Bible detailed out that she went through.
It doesn't just say that, well, she saw the fruit, or it doesn't say that, oh, well, she
thought about what the serpent said, and she took it, and she took the fruit.
The Bible talks about this whole process that she went through.
She looked at it, she saw, she reached, she took.
It was this whole entire process.
It was really, really fascinating how detailed that the whole thing was.
in a very short time frame.
So I've always found that very, very fascinating.
Her interaction with this thing,
this whole process of thinking about it,
questioning the Lord,
and then this process of going through with it,
as opposed to making it very short,
very sweet, very simple.
Anyway, I just always thought that that was neat.
So what is the difference between the tree of life
and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
So we tend to have a lot of resentment,
even though none of us want to admit it.
A lot of resentment that at least
we've had to come to terms with,
that we're disappointed that Adam and Eve
made the choice that they did.
They messed it up for the rest of us, right?
But really, what it is that,
we make that decision every single day,
multiple times a day,
am I gonna eat from the tree of life,
or am I gonna eat from the tree
of the knowledge of good and evil?
They're just the first ones that did it.
So what is the difference between eating
from the tree of life versus eating
from the tree of knowledge of good and evil?
It's the source.
Where are we getting the source of our actions,
the source of our being,
the source of our belief in where we get our protection,
where we get our provision,
where we get our identity,
what identifies us, what protects us,
and what provides for us?
Which one?
Is it God, or is it self?
Now, why would anybody wanna turn away
from allowing the Lord to provide for us
and to be our source?
Because this way, we can control the outcome.
This way, we can plug in a formula
to get an exact result,
because they are spiritual principles
that we can choose to operate by
that will give us an exact result,
because it is a law, right?
Remember that this is relationship, this is law.
You follow the law, you get an exact result.
Who created the law?
Says that, actually, it says that the law
came about through angels,
which I thought was really interesting,
that God provided the law in order to protect
the Israelites when they rejected relationship,
but the law and being able to operate
according to particular spiritual principles
has existed long before the Israelites.
It was just a specific type of covenant
that, how would you put that?
A particular type of covenant
that used, that took advantage of
and operated according to the spiritual principles
that God had already put into place,
and said, okay, you wanna know
how to follow the spiritual principles?
Okay, I'm gonna write them out for you.
They're gonna be called the Ten Commandments,
and there's gonna be this huge book of the law as well,
and you follow all those things.
I've now revealed to you the spiritual principles
that I wrote out a very long time ago,
and that Adam and Eve chose a very long time ago.
So anyway, so the difference is the source.
Is it self, or is it God?
Death or life?
Behaving or believing?
Law, relationship.
Wage, I'm gonna work for my result,
versus I'm just going to get a result
based off of the fact that it's a gift,
based off of my identity,
not based off of how much I've worked.
So striving, rest.
Good and evil, life.
That's the difference.
That's the choice that we're making.
And again, if we do this,
well then we can insure ourselves of a particular result.
Why is that appealing to us?
For the same reason that it was appealing to Eve.
Satan made her question,
because, I didn't read that second question.
It said, well not the second question,
the second statement that the serpent made.
You will not surely die,
for God knows that when you eat of it,
your eyes will be opened,
and you will be like God,
knowing good and evil.
When she's in relationship with God,
and she's acting and living in the earth,
and governing the garden,
because God provided the garden.
She and Adam just governed the increase.
She was able to live out of her relationship with God.
She knew what to do in the garden,
and how to govern the garden,
based off of relationship with God.
So she didn't need to know the difference
between good and evil.
Why?
Because when you operate out of relationship with God,
you're operating out of your identity as a son,
and out of being the essence of who God is,
because remember we're born of God,
and therefore everything you do is good.
But over here,
you have to have an arbitrary list,
like the Israelites had to have.
You know, a list of all these spiritual principles
that God put into place.
Choose between them,
and then decide to, you know.
tick them off, you know, hit all of the check boxes in order to ensure yourself
that you're doing something good and that you're pleasing to God because you
did these things and therefore you can ensure yourself that you're gonna get a
particular result. We're working for it. If we follow, if we act out of
relationship though, if we act out of the essence of the character of God, God is
always good. He's the very definition of good. He is good as in the noun, as in the
very, the very thing. How do we know what good is? Well, we look at God and
whatever he is, that's what good is and we're taking everything else and
comparing it up to him as the standard measure. Good is not this arbitrary idea
that we compare God against in order to determine whether or not God's good.
God is the standard of what good actually is and everything else compared next to
it in order to know whether or not it is good. Does it look kind of like God?
Or not kind of like God. Does it look like God? Well, then it must be a good
thing. Does it not look like God? Well, then it's not a good thing. But remember,
if we pulled it out as this arbitrary idea and we try to follow it as an
arbitrary idea, trying to look like the character of God but not allowing
ourselves to be of his essence, then that, our source over here has been
removed from God as the source and this is actually, this is actually
death. This is actually self. I'm going to just do these things that look like him
but the life source is not the essence of God himself because if I act out of
a relationship with him, well then he's the life source. If I don't act out of a
relationship with him and I pull myself away from him and I pull out,
well what are some characteristics of God? Okay, let me write all of those down
and follow those, then I'm relying on self. That's the difference between the
two. So anyway, so the serpent told told Eve, you know, you're gonna be, you're
gonna be like God. So in other words, God's holding out on you. God knows that
if you eat of that tree, then you're gonna have this. So what he's telling Eve
is that means there's something currently you don't have and God won't
provide it for you. And so he's like, oh I had thought about that. I didn't know
that I could know out there between good and evil. I'd like to know the
difference between good and evil. I mean, is anybody else besides me
ever seen this passage as, well isn't that like Eve wanting to do something
good? See, it can sound really good. Well, I want to know the difference between
good and evil. I mean, why does an evil person want to know the difference
between good and evil? They don't care. They just want to do whatever it is they
want to do. But a good person wants to know the difference between good and
evil to please her father, right? But here's the problem. She thinks she's not
pleasing to her father. She thinks God's holding out on her and that there's
something that she's missing and that she needs it. That's the problem. So we
villainize poor Eve as if, you know, what she's done is a terrible thing. Yes, she
did choose to provide for herself. Absolutely. And she doubted the fact that
God was providing something for her. But I read this passage as in she
wanted to know. She wanted to know the difference between good and evil. What
she didn't rely on and rest in is the fact that if she just stayed in
relationship with God, she didn't need to know the difference between good and
evil. What does that mean? It means that her mind could remain innocent. But when
we come into the knowledge of evil, even in order to stay away from it, there is
an essence in which we lose a bit of innocence. And I don't mean that we like
we need to think of it as like sin or anything like that. But there is an
element in which we have lost some innocence. And it talks about that later
on in Scripture. Let's just point this out really quick. You go to...
because God commended Thyatira, which was one of the seven churches of
Revelation. He commended Thyatira for not even knowing about the bad things of
Satan. So in other words, like even knowing him to stay away from him. He's
like, you don't even need to know him. So that is... where is it? Okay, so here we go.
So Revelation 2... well, let me start earlier because otherwise it'll sound
confusing. Okay, so let me start in 220. Nevertheless, I have this against you.
Because remember, this is Jesus talking to the angel. That's what it says. To the
angel of the church.
in Thyatira. It says, nevertheless I have this against you. You tolerate that
woman Jezebel who calls herself a prophetess. By her teaching she misleads
my servants into sexual immorality and the eating of food sacrifice to idols. I
have given her time to repent of her immorality but she is unwilling so I
will cast her on a bed of suffering and I will make those who commit adultery
with her suffer intensely unless they repent of her ways. God is not talking to
unbelievers here. He's talking to a church. He's talking to believers. He
says, I will strike her children dead then all the churches will know that I
am he who searches hearts and minds. So that was where they were sinning against
the Lord in their hearts and minds. It said, and I will repay each of you, the
church, each of you according to your deeds. Now I say to the rest of
you in Thyatira, to you who do not hold to her teaching and have not learned
Satan's so-called deep secrets, and then parentheses, I will all I will not
impose any other burden on you. Only hold on to what you have until I come. He
commended those in the church of Thyatira that did not, that had not
learned Satan's so-called deep secrets. I mean, so in other words, there's an
element of innocence in not knowing all of the wiles and the strategies of
Satan. That's a bigger, deeper subject we can go into because
there's a lot of people that have ministries around spiritual warfare and
understanding everything to the nth degree. I'm not saying that all
those things are bad, but there is an element of innocence that has to be
sacrificed. God uses people like that. He uses people that understand the way that
Satan has built up his world, has organized the demons and the
fallen angels and all of the strategies that he uses against people and
how people can defend themselves against it, how people can watch out for
this, that, and the other and be aware that when such-and-such crops up in
their life, you know, that's Satan lying to them. And God uses ministries like
that. He calls people to ministries like that. Those are tools, but there is an
element, in a way, that's still of the knowledge of the tree of good and evil
if we think that that is required in order to attain righteousness. Remember,
we already have righteousness, but it is a tool that can be used. However, when we
operate according to the Spirit and we operate out of who we are, there's no
more spiritual warfare because Satan is under our feet. If we're one with Christ
and it says that Satan is under Christ's feet, then it means that Satan is under
our feet. We don't need to fight him like this anymore. I just wanted to mention
that. I'm giving you an awful lot in addition to the truth knowledge of good
and evil tonight, aren't I? I'm trying to think if there was something else I was
going to say about that. I think that I'll leave it there for now. Well,
okay, so there is one thing that I wanted to mention. Remember that what happened
when they ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil? They hid. They hid and
they covered themselves with fig leaves. Were they any different before the fall
than after the fall? Were they not naked before the fall, but then
after they fell, now all of a sudden, oh my, we're naked. No, they were always naked.
So what changed? Their mind, their belief. They changed systems and
according to that new system that they chose, this was an issue. When it was, when
they were in relationship with God, remember, everything they did was good.
Everything that they were was good, but when they pulled the list out and
then are trying to operate according to some arbitrary list of do's and
don'ts, somehow the nakedness thing fell into an evil category instead of a good
one and therefore they had to cover. They had to change. They had to hide. It was
their mind that changed. It's what it is that they believed about God and what it
is that they believed about themselves. They chose to operate
according to a different system. It was all in their head. So if they
could have just stayed in relationship.
God said you're perfectly fine if you're naked. Isn't that interesting that they were
perfectly fine being naked? But if they operate according to this system, when
it's no longer in relationship, because it's removed from the life
source of God himself, then all of a sudden nakedness isn't good anymore
according to this list. But when you're in God, nakedness is perfectly fine.
There's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing sinful. There's nothing lustful.
There's nothing that leads you to lust because you're always operating
according to the nature and relationship of the Lord. Over here, though, all of a sudden
nakedness became a problem. What happened was their mind shift changed.
They chose a different system. They chose, I'm gonna choose all of these things
that are arbitrary outside and separated from the life source of God himself.
Yes, so let's look at Galatians. Galatians, where do I want to start? We're gonna
start in Galatians 1. Well, you know what? Before I do that, let me see if there
was anything else. Okay, remember again that the thing about the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil versus the tree of life. Remember that Jesus, when he
came and he died, he didn't come to die to make bad people good. That's what
tree of the knowledge of good and evil is. Jesus didn't die to make bad people good.
Remember what I just talked about nakedness and how that seemed a little
weird over here? It was fine and over here it's not. God didn't care.
God didn't come over here to make bad people good. He came to make dead people
live. Remember the tree of life? Life. Contrary to the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. God did not come here to make bad people good. He came to make
dead people live, period. It's important that we realize that
when we choose to operate according to the tree of knowledge of good and evil, we
became enemies of God in our own mind. That's what it is that we did.
Remember the whole nakedness thing? It's in their mind. That's the system that
they chose. Let's operate according to spiritual principles. Let's pull it out of
relationship with God because that is vulnerability. That's what nakedness is.
Complete vulnerability and everything's fine. Over here, we want to protect
ourselves against vulnerability. We protect ourselves because
vulnerability is an unsafe thing and therefore we constantly want to cover.
Yes, he came to make dead people live. That's right. We became enemies
of God in our own mind. We had to hide. We had to cover. We do the same
thing now because we believe that if I didn't tithe, if I treated someone badly,
if I said something, if I did X, Y, or Z, if I didn't do whatever I think that a
good wife would do, if I didn't do whatever it is that I think that a
good mother would do, then we've condemned ourselves and we made
ourselves enemies of God in our own mind because that's the standard that we set
up for ourselves. God's over there going, what's the deal? I don't
understand. What's the deal? Things haven't changed, but we dictated
how our relationship with God would work from that point and because we
have the power and the authority to do so because God gave us that free
will to choose that. Let's look at Galatians really quick.
Galatians 1, starting in verse 6, Paul is saying, I'm astonished that you were so
quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are
turning to a different gospel. This is Galatians. These are people who were
saved. It says, which is really no gospel at all. Again, tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. Evidently, and you're gonna see
later on in the passage how it's very evident that he's talking about the
tree of knowledge of good and evil versus the tree of life. Evidently, some
people are throwing you into confusion and are trying to pervert the
gospel of Christ. In other words, that the way to get to Christ or the way to get
to God is by doing everything that you, doing all of this stuff. These
are people that are already saved. They understood full well, all we
have to do is...
They say disbelieve on Christ,
but Paul is getting onto them for what they did after that.
He's like, okay, so you already know
that all you had to do was to believe in Christ,
and you're saved.
So now that you're saved, and now that you know that,
why on earth are you living life
according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?
As if this gets you in,
but belief doesn't keep you there
and make you please me before the Lord.
So it says, evidently, some people are throwing you
into confusion or trying to pervert the gospel of Christ.
But even if we or an angel from heaven
should preach a gospel other than the one we preach to you,
let him be eternally condemned.
As we have already said, so now I say again,
if anybody is preaching to you a gospel
other than what you have accepted,
because again, this is past tense,
they'd already accepted this, they're already saved.
If anyone preaches a different gospel
other than what we've already accepted,
let him be eternally condemned.
Am I now trying to win the approval of men?
Again, listed do's and don'ts, shoulds and shouldn'ts,
what have we all agreed as a society or to ourselves
that what are the standards that we're being held to?
My house should look like this,
my business should look like this,
I should be doing these things,
I shouldn't be doing these things.
You know, am I trying to think of all of the things
that your mothers have said or maybe continue to say to you
the things that your fathers continue to say,
the things that your siblings, the things that your friends,
the thing that your pastor,
the thing that your worship leader, whoever.
You know, whoever it is that's in your head.
I used to have certain people in my head
when I would pick out clothes.
And trust me, I just, you know, everybody would know,
I just very modestly and I would be careful,
you know, I would always be looking at prices, et cetera,
and I would hear, I could not go buy something
without hearing certain people in my life in my head
in order to know, I wonder if I should buy this or not,
what would they say?
And it took me until I was 30-something years old
to recognize that that's what I was doing.
It was that ingrained in me.
I never once realized I was hearing people in my head
when I was making decisions.
Certain people in my head, why?
Because I was hearing that constant standard
that society or they themselves
and the way they'd interpreted society
according to the culture that they grew up in,
in whatever part of Texas or Wyoming or wherever it is,
according to the way that they thought
that God made things pleasing to God
and or that other people would, if I follow these rules,
would find me, would agree that I was pleasing to God
and wouldn't create trouble for me if they judged me
because they thought I wasn't pleasing to God.
I was hearing people in my head.
It was just insane.
Anyway, so am I now trying to win the approval of men
or of God?
Or am I trying to, yeah, yeah,
or am I trying to please men?
If I were still trying to please men,
I would not be a servant of Christ.
So in other words, he's saying this is a perverted gospel.
This is not how we get to Christ.
This is not how we stay in Christ.
I want you to know, brothers,
that the gospel I preached is not something
that man made up.
Remember, what did Adam and Eve do?
Adam and Eve came up with this idea in their minds
that they should follow a list of do's and don'ts,
shoulds and shouldn'ts,
according to the spiritual principles
that God put into place,
that if they choose this system to rely on themselves
to know what's right and wrong,
God said, then you will know what's right and wrong.
Satan was right when he said that.
He said, well, God knows that you're gonna then know
what's right and wrong
because according to spiritual principles
that God put into place,
if that's the path that they chose
to separate themselves from relationship with him,
then they were gonna know right and wrong.
So in knowing the things that were now right and wrong,
they were creating a system that was man made.
It's almost like, terrible as it sounds,
partnering with Satan to come up with this system
that we now all follow
because it is contrary to the Lord
in the way that he wants us to operate out of relationship.
So I want you to know, brothers,
that the gospel I preached is not something
that man made up.
I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it.
Rather, I received it by revelation from Christ.
I'm going to skip through.
all of that. I highly recommend that y'all go and you read Galatians. Very,
very, very, very good and it talks a lot about and talks a lot about the
difference between the knowledge of the tree of life versus the tree of
the knowledge of good and evil. So if we skip to Galatians 3, you foolish
Galatians, who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly
portrayed as crucified, I would like to learn just one thing from you. Did you
receive this spirit by observing the law or by believing what you heard? Are you
so foolish? After beginning with this spirit, because they believed on Jesus
Christ and that's how they became saved, after beginning with this spirit are you
now trying to attain your goal by human effort? So you become saved like this but
in order to be pleasing to God after you're in the kingdom, now you have to
obey all of these rules? That doesn't make any sense. So have you suffered
so much for nothing, if it really was for nothing? Does God give you his spirit
and work miracles among you because you observe the law or because you believe
what you heard? Remember that believe what you heard because faith comes by
hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Again, that's why Satan attacked the
Word because it's the foundation of everything. So consider Abraham, he
believed God, he believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. We keep
thinking if we do all these things, those are the righteous things to do and that
is the way that we can obtain righteousness but it says that that he
believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. So understand then
that those who believe are children of Abraham. The scripture foresaw that God
would justify the Gentiles by faith and announced the gospel in advance to
Abraham. All nations will be blessed through you so that those who have faith
are blessed with Abraham, the man with faith. All who rely on observing the law
are under a curse for it is written. Cursed is everyone who does not continue
to do everything written in the book of the law. Remember, God's the one who
created the law, right? I mean, he created the law, he read the law, he told, he's the
one who creates spiritual principles. Understand, Satan doesn't create
spiritual principles. Satan's not that powerful. God created spiritual principles.
So clearly no one is justified before God by the law because the
righteous, it says, will live by faith. The law is not based on faith.
On the contrary, the man who does these things will live by them. So whatever you
do, however you frame up your world, whatever standards that you set up,
you're gonna have to live by those. That's exhausting. It is so exhausting.
However you frame up your world in the way that you believe that it
works, God holds me to this. God holds me to these standards. This is what God
requires. Then God's like, okay, well, as you declared and as you decreed, so be it.
That's how you framed up your world. You don't even have to say it out of your
mouth. If you say it out of your intention, out of spirit, it makes it so
because you believe it to be so. But remember that this is unbelief.
Anything that is not believing what God said is unbelief and it's sin.
So I guess I'll just leave that there because then we could go on to
talk about the law and the promise and all that, but I'm not going to.
We've actually already covered some of that when we talked about the
fact that we're one seed with Christ instead of two. Let me see what, whoops,
oh my goodness, this has gone everywhere. So I have some notes here. I wanted to
see if there was anything else. Okay, remember that if we believe, just like
the Galatians, if we believe according to the tree of life, but we start operating
according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil afterwards, what that
means is that we are trying to get back into favor with God by using the very
thing that got Adam and Eve kicked out of the garden. We cannot take the thing
that kicked Adam and Eve out of the garden and use that thinking that's
finally going to get us back in the garden. That doesn't make any sense
whatsoever. We have to leave this tree
Completely. Completely. It doesn't lead to anything but death. And so all you can
get from working for a wage, I mean work, all you can get from striving is a
wage. Remember that's the exchange program. Tit for tat. You do this, I'll
bless you. You do this, I'll curse you. You know, that's the law. You follow the law.
But it leads to nothing but death. And it repeats that repeatedly throughout
scripture. Another thing to remember is that the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil is one fruit. There's just one. It's not
like the tree grew apples and oranges. A tree only grows one fruit. And
the Bible calls it the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's only one
fruit. So when you eat of it, even if whatever it is that you're doing is good,
there's also evil in it. And the fact that it is not the life's force of God.
It leads to nothing but death. It can't lead to life. And which is very
interesting that the Lord uses fruit to symbolize all of this because remember
that we always, that fruit brings life. I mean it's fuel. It brings life. It's
meant to serve us. And yet this fruit actually brings death. It's the very
opposite. It is so corrupted, so twisted that it doesn't even function according
to the way that God intended fruit to function. Which is to serve the sons of
God and fill them with life. That is how corrupted this thing is. That it's not
even following its nature. So we could talk about, we could talk about the
law versus relationship and covenant. So however, there's so many things that we
could say. I want to mention also that if we think that this is how we get
saved, that there's things that we have to do and we have to do them right.
And we have to do them in a particular way. Then it means that, in order for God
to be pleased with this, then it means that we believe that Jesus' death, burial
and resurrection was not powerful enough. That it was only powerful enough to get
us to a certain point, but that we need the rest of this to get us the rest of
the way. And we have to spend the rest of our lives following this. And that's not
true. Either Jesus completely put us in the new place and has in the power that
can put us in that place, has the power to sustain us in that place. So that no
matter what we do, we can never fall and we can never fail. Then it doesn't need
anything else. So for us to say that there's some yes but, means that what
Jesus did wasn't enough. And it's fully enough. Remember, here's what's really
fascinating. Adam and Eve could fall. After Christ's death, it was so
powerful, death, burial and resurrection, it was so powerful, it is impossible for
us to fall now. It's impossible. You can't do anything. We keep thinking, well, Adam and Eve fell.
I can fall. No, you can't. You can't fall anymore. Because Christ is so powerful. He
can not only place you there, he can sustain you in that place. And he
does. He does sustain you. So we're in a very different situation and position
than Adam and Eve were in. And yeah. So, um, let's see what... My goodness, so many things to talk
about. So let me just mention just a lot, the last few of these things. So some of
the things that we can be aware of are part of the tree of the knowledge of
good and evil. We'll talk a lot more about all of this later. But things such
as health, wealth, obviously. We'll be talking a lot about a business in the
next, like, week or two. Like within the next couple of weeks.
Because we're halfway through the intensive. So the next, the next, like, bit
we're going to be talking, we're going to be talking a lot more about business
specifically. How to be taking all of this foundation that we've been, that
we've been discussing so far and implementing exactly in business. Making
decisions, etc. Yes. Yes, exactly. The covenant was made between God. Let's...
Sorry. Let me see. And Jesus on our behalf. We bring nothing to the table. Yes. In
fact, let's talk about that really quick. I love that.
I love that you brought that up, Amy. Let's look at Hebrews.
Hebrews, here we go. Okay, so Hebrews 6, 13. So according to
Hebrews 6, 13 through 20, that is how we know
that God, we were not even part of the covenant.
We were not. We were the beneficiaries
of the covenant between God and himself so that
we who were the, what would you call us? We were the
thing that could have made the whole thing fall apart
because we could leave. We could break the covenant.
We could break covenant with God, right? God's like, I don't want to risk that.
So you're not even a part of the covenant. So when,
I mean like in making the covenant, you just get to benefit
from the fact that I am making covenant with myself
which cannot be broken and I'm, and neither one of me, the me that's
the me that's creating the covenant and the me that's agreeing to the covenant,
neither one of me is leaving. So therefore you don't have to worry
about any of this falling apart because I'm not going to leave.
And then you, the risk factor, had you been a, had you been a factor
in one of the parties, you know, the first of the party, the first part of the
party of the second part, you know, that actually made the covenant,
he said then the covenant would have been at risk
and it's not at risk because it was only God making covenant with God. He put
Abraham into a deep sleep. If you go back in Genesis and read that,
he put Abraham, when he wanted to make covenant with Abraham, he was telling
Abraham all these things. Abraham set up the altar, set up the doves, you know,
divided the animals, you know, you know, because it said, you know, divide the
animals in half, lay them on the altar, and then God passed between
everything after he put Abraham into deep sleep.
So God made covenant while Abraham's in deep sleep. What does that mean?
Abraham was put into a state of rest. Same thing that God did with Adam
when he pulled Adam, when he pulled Eve out of Adam, which is
interestingly making covenant. So, you know, because there's covenant between
man and woman and so he created the covenant between
man and woman and he did it while Adam was asleep.
Then he did the same thing with Abraham. I'm going to make a covenant, Abraham,
you're going to be the beneficiary, so I'm going to put you in a deep sleep
and I'm going to do it. I'm going to put you in a place of rest so that there is
no question that you did, that you were part of it at all,
that you could create it or that you could mess it up.
And so he said, I'm just going to put you in deep sleep. You are in a complete
state of rest. I will do everything.
Then God created additional, very fascinating,
interesting reconciliation covenant while
Jesus was asleep. In other words, Jesus was dead.
So remember he was dead for three days. There was fascinating work
that God did on making covenant while Jesus was dead.
What is everybody saying? It says that we're halfway done.
Oh no, but remember Steph, we're still friends. We could still talk about all of
this, right? Oh no.
Okay, good. All right, so it froze. Sorry. So maybe you could watch the replay, Amy,
and catch where it had frozen for you. So thanks,
Steph, for letting me know that it was still going on your end.
Also, that little orange thing that Cheryl told me
how to understand, it didn't pop down. So in other words, I think that my
internet's okay, which is a good thing because it means you can
re-watch it and it didn't skip. Okay, so Hebrews 6, 13 through
20. So when God made his promise to Abraham,
since there was no one greater for him to swear by,
he swore by himself saying, I will surely bless you and give
you many descendants. So you see, God makes covenant with himself.
And then he tells Abraham, hey, you're the third party beneficiary.
Based off of the covenant that I'm making with myself,
you get to benefit. It says, and so after waiting patiently, Abraham received what
was promised. Men swear by someone greater than
themselves and the oath confirms what is said and puts an end to all argument
because God wanted to make the unchanging nature of his purpose
very clear to the errors of what was promised. He confirmed it with
an oath. So God promised, so and then it says,
God did this so that by two unchangeable things in which it is
impossible for God to lie. What are the two unchangeable things by
which it's impossible for God to lie?
In the previous verse it mentions,
to the heirs of what was promised, he confirmed it with an
oath. Those are the two
unchangeable things by which it was impossible for God to lie. He promised
and he made an oath. So we who have fled to take
hold of the hope offered to us may be greatly encouraged.
We have this hope as an anchor for the soul,
because it's our soul, you know, that kind of gets swayed and knocked around and
is trying to figure, is scared. That's the reason why Adam and Eve
reached out and took the fruit. Our poor little soul, you know, is
sitting on this wind and waves of emotion
and it's just like, oh what's going on? It has the potential to be swayed by
every wind of doctrine, right? And it says we needed an anchor for our
soul to settle us down, to help us understand
the reality of what it is, of how solid a state that our
spirit was being placed into, where it couldn't ever change.
And we are reinserted back into Christ. We have this hope as an anchor for the
soul, firm and secure. And what is the hope
that's the anchor for the soul? The fact that God made covenant with
himself, made promise and an oath with himself that
that Abraham would be able to benefit and be brought back into
reconciliation. Abraham and all of his descendants
be brought back into reconciliation in relationship,
remember law versus relationship, in relationship with God
and based strictly on the fact that they believed. Because remember
Abraham believed and it was credited to him as
righteousness. So now the reason that we see that
things kind of went haywire there for a little bit
is because, well actually for a very long time, for hundreds of years,
is the fact that when the Israelites, oh this is a very fascinating point
to bring up, the Israelites were offered on at
Mount Sinai to come into covenant
relationship with God, which was the fulfillment of the promise
that God made to Abraham. He said, hey I'm going to bring you and your
descendants into relationship with me. This is my commitment.
This is my promise, whatever. So then 400, 450 years later, I don't
remember exactly how long, something like that, 400, 450 years later,
the Israelites were brought to Mount Sinai and God's like, okay I promised
your fathers, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Because every time there was a new
generation, he said, I re-established my covenant with them. I said,
you get to benefit too. You get to benefit too.
You know, you're all third-party beneficiaries. I'm going to allow you to
receive the promise and the commitment and the covenant that I made with
Abraham. Isaac, I'm allowing you what it is
that this document, if you will, this
covenant that I made with your father, now it gets to be passed down to the son
and then it gets to be passed down to Jacob, etc.
So now the Israelites are all in front of Mount Sinai and God's like, I'm going to
give it to you. And they got really scared and they
said, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't want to come to a relationship
with God where he offers us to be sons of God
and all of that and operate according to relationship.
They said, we just want law. Moses, you do it for us and just tell us what
to do and we'll do it. Do you see how all of
this sounds nice? The same thing with Eve. She looked at
that and she thought, I want to know the difference between good and evil.
I want to know the difference and then I can make sure to choose the good.
This is what Israel said. Just tell us what to do
and we'll do it. Both of them are resisting relationship
though. It's fascinating. If you look in Deuteronomy,
Moses, who's recounting the story to the
children of the generation that told Moses,
just tell us what to do and we'll do it.
You go and ask God what it is we'll do and we'll do it.
In Deuteronomy, when the next generation down, after that generation that was at
Mount Sinai, God took them to Canaan and they said,
oh no, we can't take this. We're grasshoppers in their sight. God said,
okay, fine. You're going to go wander around in the wilderness for 40
years and you're going to die. He said, but your children I will take
into the land and be able to claim it. In Deuteronomy, Moses is talking to
the younger generation. He's talking to that
generation who has grown up in the wilderness for 40 years while
their ancestors died off. He's recounting the story. He
said, we're ancestors.
they have the opportunity to have a relationship with the Lord. He said, and
when they rejected him, and this is the part that we find out about the story in
Deuteronomy that it doesn't mention in Genesis, and that is the fact that Moses
recounts, he said, he says, when the Israelites said that and said, hey look,
just tell us what to do and we'll do it. He said, the Lord told me what they have
said is good. Because it's from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
They had the option to choose between good things or
evil things. They chose a good one. It sounds good. I want to know, Lord, the
difference between right and wrong. I want to do what you tell me to do.
Everything sounds wonderful. It sounds humble. It sounds submissive. And God's
like, I don't want submissive in that way. He said, I don't want
submissive as a servant. I want submissiveness in relationship in the
same way that a wife is submissive to her husband. Being submissive to one's
husband in relationship is very different than being submissive to
someone out of servanthood. Very, very different. I mean, no wonder people are
afraid of the whole idea of submission and what that could possibly mean.
Because this is all we think of when we think of submission. But this isn't.
It's not a bad thing. I was trying to see if I had finished that
passage. It just goes on to say, we have this hope as an anchor for the
soul, firm and secure. Again, this is Hebrews 6. It enters the sanctuary
behind the curtain where Jesus, who went before us, has entered in on our behalf.
He's become a high priest forever in the order of Melchizedek. So it talks
about the fact that this covenant allows us past that veil into the Holy of
Holies. And we get to reside there because Jesus Christ is the high priest,
which is right. The high priest is allowed to go first and he made
restitution for us, allowing all of us to come in after him. Because remember, the
veil was torn. Meaning that it opened access to the Father for all
of us. There's a lot more that we'll be talking about about the Tree of the
Knowledge of Good and Evil, especially in the next teaching, which should be
tomorrow. We're going to be talking a lot more in depth about the
difference between three different realms and areas in which we can operate.
The two main ones are what we've been talking about tonight, operating according
to the Spirit and relationship versus the carnal or the Tree of the Knowledge
of Good and Evil, which is outside of relationship. However, there are two
different ways that we can kind of frame up operating out of this, the Tree of
the Knowledge of Good and Evil, where people who operate according to the Tree
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, we all kind of make, which is very typical of
this tree, we make... there's... how would you put it? We put each other... we judge
each other and create different standards of measure for each other and
say, well, these people who believe this about God, they're down here. But then
you're better and more mature if you do these things. And you're even better and
more mature if you do these things. You're even better and more mature if you do these things. So this one over here, there's a lot of
complexity to it. There's a lot of judgments, there's a lot of standards of
measure, and there's... and we can kind of frame it up as the Lord does, as Jesus
did in one of his parables. We can kind of divide this one into two very general
categories of people... of Christians... we're not talking about non-believers... of
Christians operating... who are all gonna go to heaven. All these people are gonna
go to heaven. And I used to live... I was very good at this tree, by the way, for
30-some-odd years. I'm very good at this tree. It was excellent. I could teach
other people this tree. I did teach other people this tree. And I was noted for it.
I was noted for being very, very good Christian. People told me
that they wanted their children, their daughters, to be like me.
It's terrifying. Terrifying. And I was doing this. It was awful. So the Lord saved me
from myself, and I'm praying the Lord has saved all of those children, too, from
following in these footsteps. But there are generally two different ways that we
can operate over here. We can operate in an environment...
more restrictive way than this, and then that we can operate in an even more
restrictive way than this one. So there's two very general ways that Jesus said
that we can operate according to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,
but there's only one way to operate according to the tree of life. It's so
much more effortless, it's a place of rest, etc. So we'll be talking about those
essentially spirit, soul, and body. Soul and body is according to the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil. It doesn't mean your body is bad, it doesn't mean
your soul is bad. It's areas of operation. So we'll be talking about that
tomorrow, and how this actually evidences itself, and what it is that we believe,
what we believe about our health, what we believe about our nutrition, what we
believe about spiritual warfare. All of that falls into these three
realms, operating according to spirit, soul, or body. So look forward to
tomorrow, and all of this is very, very, very important in order to understand, you
know, how to flow, how to allow who we are in the spirit to flow down through
our soul and body, so that we can manifest heaven into earth in our
business. Very important. So all this foundation is very, very important, so
because it's by changing yourself that your business will change. So anyway, I
love each and every one of you. Hope you all have a really good night, and for
those of you who stayed on, I don't know if anybody's still on, but if anybody's
still on, no kudos to you. I'm sorry that it ended up being so late. Hopefully it
will not be so late tomorrow, but I will see you all later. Bye.