Discover the profound journey of cultivating real knowledge and discernment through love and faith. Rabbinical teachings reveal how to move past hurts and misunderstanding, overcoming barriers to love and spirituality. Engage with practical wisdom that helps believers reject negativity, embrace the purity of divine love, and empower themselves through the right kind of discernment and sacrificial love in Jesus Christ.
When we focus on these prayers in our own prayer life, the result is that we get transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit. We are continuing a series right now. I’m calling it Apostolic Prayers, Philippians chapter one. We’re looking at verses number nine through 11. I just wanna reiterate, these prayers that are recorded for us in the New Testament that the apostles prayed have eternal value because the things that the apostles prayed for, beloved, in the New Testament are the things that are most important to God in terms of our spiritual development. There are many things that are important to God in our life, but the most important things are those things that pertain to our inner man and to our development into Yeshua’s character. And these apostolic prayers are prayers that develop us into the very likeness of Jesus himself. And when we focus on these prayers in our own prayer life, the result is that we get transformed through the power of the Holy Spirit, according to the will of God. So I encourage you to not just approach these as a series of sermons, but to really take to heart, beloved ones, what I’m sharing and make the object of these apostolic prayers focuses in your own prayer life. Let’s just invite the Holy Spirit in right now to circumcise our hearts and to change us through the preaching of His Word. Father God, you said that the preaching of the word changes us. Father God, even as you spoke the heavens and earth into existence and created the world out of your word, we ask, Father God, that as your eternal word is preached today, Father, that you would change us, Father God, into the likeness of your son and that you would root us and ground us in the son of your love, Yeshua, Jesus the Messiah. For your glory and for your fame, we pray, Abba. Amen and amen. So let me begin reading now Philippians chapter 1, verse 9 through 11. We already covered some of this, but I’m just going to read it and then we’re going to build on it. Here we go. Verse 9, Paul said, in this I pray that your love may abound still more and more. There is always more. We always want to keep on growing in love. We never get to the place where we stop growing in love because the love of God is endless. What an awesome concept to realize that the love of God expands forever. I mean, it just fuller and fuller and fuller. And that’s what heaven’s going to be like for us. We’re going to be experiencing more and more and more and more of God’s love forever. It’s like walking into the ocean and it keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper. And it’s never exhausted. That’s what the love of God is like for us, beloved. And because we’re created in his likeness, and now have become members of Him through Yeshua, where the body of Yeshua, the Lord wants His love, which is inexhaustible and keeps on expanding and keeps on growing. He wants that love to keep on expanding and to keep on growing through our life. And so Paul says, I pray that your love may keep on growing more, he said, and more. Notice the double more. They already had love. And Paul said, I want your love to keep on growing more and more. And so this is an awesome thing to realize that as you and I are focused on developing love and growing in love, we’re actually releasing the love of God through our lives. And we’re being brought into a deeper encounter with him through it. You see, it’s kind of like this. A body of water that has no way to flow out will become foul and polluted. But a body of water that has an outlet so that water in the lake can flow into a river so that there’s movement, the water’s going to stay clean and pure. And in a similar way, we can’t be who God desires us to be unless we have a river through which we’re expressing the love of God that is being imparted to us. In other words, love. by definition, get it now, has to have an object. You can’t love without having an object. So the Bible says, he that loves knows God. In other words, if we’re not loving people, then we’re not walking in God. We’re not abiding in Jesus. Now I know for some of us, this is harder than others. I think in general, this is a generalization of course, but I think it’s an observation. I think in general, men tend to be more selfish than women. Women by nature are greater nurturers. They’re greater caregivers. They serve easier than men do. I think women by nature find it easier to love. Many men need to develop the capacity to love. And it is contrary to sometimes a man’s nature to be able to express love and to show love. But the Bible says, he that loves is born of God. And so I want to challenge our men right now, as well as our women, but I’m speaking specifically to men, because sometimes men need a greater breakthrough in this area. to reach out and show love. You see, the enemy men, the devil, would try to make us afraid to love because the devil wants us to think, men, that to show love is to show weakness. For example, some of you men perhaps grew up in a home where it was considered unmanly to show affection. You never kissed, you never hugged, you never said, I love you. And perhaps you even grew up in a home where to do so was considered weak and unmanly. But I want to say to you that when we read the New Testament, We oftentimes see Jesus speaking about love. They looked at Jesus and they said, oh, how he loved them. His love for his disciples was obvious. When Jesus weeped at Lazarus’s death, when he saw all the people around so grieved, and the Bible says Jesus wept, and they observed how much Jesus cared about the people around him, so much so that he weeped, they said, oh, how much he must have loved them. We see, for example, at the last Passover meal that Jesus celebrated with his disciples before going to the cross, we read that John, in the Gospel of John, said that the one that Jesus loved was leaning his head on Jesus’ bosom. Think of how comfortable John the Apostle was with Jesus, that he literally was leaning his head on Jesus’ bosom at that Passover meal, and John referred to himself there as the one whom Jesus loved. So Jesus, the creator of the world, the one who bound Satan, the one who holds the key of death and haze, the one who rose from the grave, conquered death, conquered the devil, ascended to the heaven, sits in heaven now at the Father’s right hand, reigning over everything. He is the most masculine being in the universe and beloved. He loves. And so, men, I want to encourage you to break out of the devil’s false paradigm that it’s unmanly to love. We need to be able to tell people, men, that we love them. We need to be able to tell our brothers, I love you, my brother. We need to be able to express affection to people, because to not be able to do this actually makes us weak. And so Paul prays, I pray that you will abound in love still more and more. Again, God is an expansive being whose love never ends. And as those that are in him, And as those that want to abide in him, our love needs to keep growing. Let’s continue on. Paul said here, and I pray that not only would your love still keep abounding more and more, he said, but that it would bound, he said, listen now, in real knowledge. Let me read exactly what it says. And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment. I mean, maybe some of you have had church experiences where you were with a brother or a sister, and your brother or sister told you that they had discernment about so-and-so’s life, and that they had discerned that this person was, and they named the sin about this person’s life. They said, you know, when I have discernment about this person, and my discernment tells me this about this person, and the discernment that they had was about an area of weakness or vulnerability in that individual’s life. And the way that they shared it, this supposed discernment that they had, this supposed special knowledge that they had about this person’s secret sin, the way that it was shared was not done in love, but it was actually done in a form of knowledge, beloved, that came from the enemy’s tree of the knowledge of good and evil. You see, James tells us that there’s two types of wisdom. There’s a wisdom that is pure and godly and full of light and beautiful, but then James told us there’s another type of wisdom or knowledge, and he said it’s demonic. And the point is, Paul says, I want your love to grow. But in order for your love to grow, you have to have real knowledge. And real knowledge is not to have insight into somebody’s life so that you can accuse them and side against them. That’s the spirit of the accuser of the brethren. That’s Satan. Some people think it’s God that they’re having this discernment from, but they don’t realize it’s not God because God is love. And the knowledge that they’re getting does not cause them to love somebody. It causes them to accuse somebody. And so that again is not real knowledge. Paul says, I pray that your love would grow more and more and that you’d have real knowledge. not the enemy’s false knowledge that makes you aware of somebody’s weakness and vulnerability and sin, but real knowledge that allows you to look past their sin, have compassion on them, and understand why they do some of the things they do. In other words, beloved, many people do some of the things they do that are sinful, but we have to be able to look beyond their sin to see the need and to love them. The Bible says that Christ died for us while we were yet sinners.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi will be right back in just a moment. But before we continue, have you followed us on Facebook? There you’ll find powerful short videos from Rabbi that are filled with biblical wisdom and lots of encouragement. You’ll also get weekly updates about our TV and radio airings so you never miss an episode. Just search for Discovering the Jewish Jesus with Rabbi Schneider on Facebook today. We’re so glad that you’re here. And our prayer is that this program, that it blesses you right now and in this moment today. And, you know, we couldn’t share this message without the support of listeners like you through radio and podcasts. And if the Lord is putting it on your heart to support this ministry, call us at 800-777-7000. 7835. Visit discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Thank you for your support. And now back to Rabbi.
SPEAKER 03 :
Greater love hath no one than this, she has said, that a man lays down his life for his friends. By this was the love of God manifest that Christ Jesus died for us. Why were we yet sinners? I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all, get this now, discernment. I covered this, but I want to say it again. The discernment comes in this way. People get hurt sometimes, and when they get hurt, the enemy comes in, because the enemy can enter in when someone is wounded. People get hurt, their hurt turns into anger, And then their hurt that turns into anger now becomes fueled by the devil and by demons, and they now begin to attack the person that hurt them, saying all types of evil against them, trying to find sin in their life, twisting their words, accusing the person. They even begin to believe the lies themselves, and they think that they’re right, and they think that they’re doing the work of God by destroying a brother or sister. They do it because they don’t have discernment about what’s going on. They don’t understand what’s going on. They don’t have the discernment to recognize that they’re doing what they’re doing because they were hurt. Pride rose up. The enemy got in. And now the enemy is giving them a false demonic knowledge of this person’s life. And now they’re coming against that person with all type of accusation, hatred, trying to discredit them, trying to destroy them. And yet the people that are doing this sometimes think that they’re actually hearing from God and doing the work of God when they’re busy spreading rumors, trying to destroy a brother or sister. That is not real discernment. Real discernment, beloved, is when these types of thoughts try to enter our mind when we get hurt and the natural tendency is to respond with pride or with anger and to start coming against that person and speaking against that person. Real discernment says, you know what? I realize what’s going on here. This is the enemy that’s trying to get in here. Discernment says, I recognize this is you, Satan. I reject you. Father, I come into agreement with the truth. I come into agreement with real knowledge, the love of God that covers the multitude of sin. Father, I’m going to strive to forgive. I’m going to strive to overcome evil with good, to speak a blessing for an insult. and to walk the way that Jesus walked, because even sinners love their friends. So, Father God, I want to be like Jesus. You see, this is real discernment. And Paul says, I pray that you would become more and more like Jesus by entering in more and more to a walk of love. Well, I think we’ve got that. Let’s move on to the next verse. Verse number 10. Paul says, I pray that you’ll be able to do this. Listen now. Walk more and more in love, discernment, and knowledge. Verse number 10. So that you might approve the things that are excellent. And this gets to what I was saying a second ago. that when we gain this experience by practicing walking in love, by keeping the enemy out when he tries to get in to take us out of walking in love, and I talked about that, how sometimes when we get weak, the enemy tries to come in, we’re irritable, we can’t deal with one more person, we can’t deal with one more stress, we can’t deal with one more relational pull on our life. You know, pretty soon, one more relationship, one more conversation, it just begins to feel, irritable in our heart and it’s during those times of weakness that the enemy can sometimes get in but what we do is when we recognize that that’s what’s going on we recognize we’re in the flesh what we do is we now say we reject it because we’re able to approve what’s excellent in other words as we gain experience walking in the spirit By practicing walking in love, we’re able to discern good from evil and approve that which is excellent and is really Jesus’ way, as opposed to getting tossed here and there by our emotions all the time and by the circumstances. I hope you’re understanding what I’m saying. Let me read it again. He says that, I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ. And continuing on, having been filled with the fruit of righteousness, which comes through Jesus Christ to the glory and praise of God. So this all connects to what I’m saying. as you and i recognize that in order to abide in jesus we need to abide in love that to abide in love takes sacrifice that we need to lay down our lives again jesus said greater love hath no man than this that a man lays down his life for his friend it takes sacrifice jesus picked up the cross He said, Father, not my will, but thy will be done, because it was love for the Father. As you and I recognize that love is the straight and narrow way that leads to life, and we learn how to reject evil, reject thoughts of accusation against ourselves and other people, and choose love instead, we’re then going to be able to approve what is excellent and walk in the righteousness of Jesus. I want to challenge you with this. It’s hard to love other people when we don’t love ourselves. I want you just to repeat after me. Father God, Lord Jesus, Holy Spirit, I believe that you love me. And I agree with you that you love me. And I forgive myself. And I choose to love myself in you too. Father God, because you love me, I love myself. And Father, I purpose from this day forward to walk in love, to love you, to love myself, and to love others for your glory, Daddy, in Jesus’ name. In 1 Samuel, chapter 2, verse 30, we read this. The Lord says, those that honor me, I will honor. You see, beloved, we receive from that which is on a person when we honor who that person is. The Lord says, those that honor me, I will honor. This is true of the Jewish people as well. The Lord said to Abraham, I will bless those that bless thee. Beloved, I believe there’s a supernatural call upon my life and upon this ministry. And by you sowing financially into this ministry, I truly believe that you’re going to receive so much more from it. YOUR FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION TO THIS MINISTRY WILL BRING YOU INTO RELATIONSHIP WITH THE ANOINTING THAT’S ON THIS MINISTRY. AND BELOVED, YOU’RE GONNA BE BLESSED. I WANNA ASK YOU, MAKE A FINANCIAL CONTRIBUTION TODAY. I’M VERY CONFIDENT IT WILL COME BACK TO YOU PRESSED DOWN IN GOOD MEASURE.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. And it’s through your faithful obedience to God’s word and your giving that we can accomplish the great commission. And when you support this ministry through prayer and your financial gifts, you’re helping us to reach Israel, to put our programs into prisons and to have on the ground outreaches in places like Nigeria and Uganda. So as the Lord leads you to support Discovering the Jewish Jesus, just go online to our website and give. That’s discoveringthejewishjesus.com. You can also give generously by calling us at 800-777-7835. That’s 800-777-7835. And we are so grateful for your generous financial gifts. And as a token of our appreciation back to you when you give, we want to make sure that you receive our latest newsletter. It is full of exclusive additional content and exciting ministry updates. And for those of you who are new monthly partners, we’ll also send you an authentic shofar that’s been handcrafted in Israel. You know, the shofar, it’s meant to call God’s people together and to stir their hearts for the coming of Messiah, the coming King of Israel who will one day rule and reign over everything. And it’s a great conversation starter for those who may not know Jesus, especially during these trying times. So please sign up online, partner with us, discoveringthejewishjesus.com. That’s discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Or give us a call at 800-777-7835. We look forward to connecting with you very soon. And now let’s wrap up today’s message with God’s special blessing. Here’s Rabbi.
SPEAKER 03 :
In the Old Testament book of Numbers, we find a blessing God speaks over His children through Moses and Aaron. It carries the idea of favor and expression. Open your heart to the Spirit and the Word today and receive Father’s goodness into your life with confidence.
The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift you up with his countenance. And the Lord give you, beloved one, his peace. God bless you and shalom.
SPEAKER 01 :
I’m Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Join us again next time when Rabbi Schneider provides the example of how to walk in God’s will. That’s Tuesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
