Rabbi Schneider shares personal insights and spiritual discoveries from his journey toward experiencing God’s presence. Reflecting on the importance of developing an intimate relationship with Jesus, he discusses the role of the Holy Spirit in guiding believers into all truth. Discover how you can move beyond religious rituals into a real and living encounter with the divine, where faith transforms into experience.
00:00:01 Developing Awareness of the Spirit of God
I want to talk today about how it is that you and I can develop an awareness of the Spirit of God to be able to walk with Him. Father God, we pray that you’ll strengthen us to be led by your spirit and to walk with you, even as Enoch did and was no more. I’m reading now from the book of Bereshit, which is the Hebrew word for Genesis. It means in the beginning. And I’m reading now, beloved, from the 23rd and 24th verse of Genesis, chapter 5. Hear the word of God. So all the days of Enoch were 365 years. And here’s the phrase I want you to get. And Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. I want to ask you this question. How was it that Enoch was able to walk with God? Was it because he read a lot of books? Was it because he was a member of this super spiritual congregation? No. We all know the answer. Enoch was able to walk with God, beloved ones, because he had a relationship with God through the Spirit of God. Enoch was able to walk with God because he was able to follow the leading of God’s Spirit. That’s the only way man is able to walk with God. The Bible tells us in the book of Romans, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. So Enoch was able to have this relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. Yeshua said in John 14 and 16 that it was good that He was going away because He said because of His departure and because of His sacrificial death for our sins, He was going to be able to release to us the gift of the Ruach Elohim, the gift of the Holy Spirit. We call it in Hebrew the Ruach HaKadosh. And Yeshua said, and when I release the Spirit of God upon you, Yeshua said He’s going to take of me and He’s going to disclose it unto you, and He will lead you and guide you into all truth. So the secret, beloved, of walking with God as Enoch did is being led by the Spirit of God. Now, in the Hebrew Bible, there was a select few whom the Spirit of God was operating on in a very significant way. But as a whole, the Spirit of God had not been poured out upon all flesh as it came to be poured out on all flesh at the experience of Acts chapter 2, Pentecost or Shavuot. I want to talk today about how it is that you and I can develop an awareness of the Spirit of God to be able to walk with Him. When the Lord revealed Himself to me in a vision back in 1978 and visited me in a few very powerful, special encounters during those early years of walking with Him, the goal became for me after that point this. If God was able to make me supernaturally aware of His presence and of His Spirit when He revealed Himself to me back in 1978 in the vision in the middle of the night and through those other brief visitations, I said, then why Can I not always walk with a supernatural awareness of God’s presence? So that became my goal as a believer from the very beginning, to walk with God, to walk in a way that I was conscious of his supernatural presence with me, of his love, of his power, and of his spirit. The goal for me was never being a rabbi. It was never being a teacher. Those things just happened as an overflow of my hunger to experience God myself. And now I’m on that same path. I want to lay a hold of God, just like many of you do, just as he has laid a hold of me. I want to come to know him, beloved, even as I am known by him. And that’s the same for many of you. You want to know him even as he knows you. We can only know him by his spirit. Paul said, eye has not seen, ear has not heard, and neither has it entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those that love him. And these things, Shaul said, Paul said, he reveals to us and has revealed to us by His Spirit. The point is, Paul is saying, there is such beauty, such revelation, such abundance, such fullness in God for us, and we come into the experience of these realities, beloved, by His Spirit. But many of you have made Bible reading the end rather than the means to the end. And you’ve made the Christian disciplines the end rather than the means to the end. All these things are important. Witnessing is important. Tithing is important. Bible study is important. Going to church or Christian fellowship is important. But beloved, these things are not to be the end, but they’re all designed to deepen our relationship with Yeshua that we might experience Him. You see, beloved, the goal of our faith is to walk in a love relationship with the Lord. That’s why He’s created us. That’s why the book of Revelation tells us that our walk with Him culminates in an event that the book of Revelation calls the marriage supper of the Lamb. Can you imagine being married to somebody that you would only read about? Could you imagine being married to somebody that you only had a relationship with as a doctrine? No. Marriage is designed to be the most intimate relationship between a man and a woman. The point that I’m making, beloved, for those of you that are hungry, is that God has more for us. He wants us to experience Him in Jesus. It’s awesome. We need to believe, beloved, but our faith should bring us into a real and living encounter with them. This is why Yeshua said in John 14, 21 and 23, if you love me, you’ll obey me and it’s going to bring you close to me. Your love for me is going to lead you to obey me because you’re going to want oneness with me. And as you love me and obey me, out of your desire for union and intimacy with me, what’s going to happen, he says, is you’re going to be brought near to me. I’m going to draw near to you. And he said, and I’m going to release the love of my father into your heart so that you’re going to experience him. Yeshua said there, I’m going to disclose myself and manifest myself to you. I’m going to make my home with you. Beloved, Jesus is to be experienced. Listen, walking with God, it’s not just about some of the forms of religion that many are trapped in today. Walking with God is designed to lead us into an intimate, living, passionate, fiery relationship, hallelujah, with Yeshua, who is a living person. That’s why he has a name, because he’s a real person that desires to reveal himself. But he’s not going to reveal himself to us, beloved, until we make him king of our lives, until we choose to put him first, until we choose to step out and say, I love you. He will reveal Himself when three things are in place, beloved. First of all, when we say yes to Him, if we’re going to be brought to the Lord, we’re going to have to come to Him on His terms. And the first of those terms is that we forsake everything for Him. Remember Yeshua said, He that does not hate father, mother, brother, sister, He said, cannot be my disciple. What does that mean? Does that mean he wants us to turn on our families with hatred? Absolutely not. But it means that we can’t have anything getting in the way of our love for him. Nothing can stop us. Remember the man that said, Lord, I want to follow you, but first let me bury my father. What did Yeshua say? No, you let the dead bury the dead. For he that seeks to follow me and then looks back is not worthy of me. So the first requirement to entering into this experience with God, if we’re going to walk with God like Enoch. We’re going to need to be like Abraham that left everything to follow the Lord. The first requirement, beloved, there needs to be a big resounding yes in our heart to the Lord. Yes, God, whatever it takes, whatever you have to put me through, whatever I have to go through, I want you more than anything else. I have made up my mind. You are my portion in life. And then secondly, beloved, we need to believe that we truly are in this relationship with him in such a way that he accepts us right where we’re at. Many of us, we don’t really feel close to God because deep in our heart, we feel that the Lord has condemned us because we’re not perfect yet. I struggle with that for years. And I say, but Lord. I don’t love you with all my heart, with all my soul and with all my might. And then I would feel condemned. I would feel like I was rejected. But then the Lord brought me into understanding and helped me to understand, no, in your heart, you want to love me with all your heart. You want to love me with all your soul. You want to love me with all your might. You might stray at times. There might be times when thoughts go through your mind that you’re not even aware of. There may be times when you let your guard down a little bit. But deep inside you, my son, you have a yes for me. And I want you to know that I love you just where you’re at, even though there’s still weakness in you. Even though your love is not yet perfected, your love is real and genuine. So I want you to know right now, beloved, if you genuinely have a true love for God, if deep in your heart there’s a big yes to Him, if deep in your heart you’re saying, Lord, I want to love you. I want to obey you with all my heart, strength, soul, and mind. I’ll do whatever it takes. Whatever you have to put me through, I’m willing. I want you to know, beloved, God loves you even in your weakness. Even though your love is not yet perfectly mature, even though your obedience is not yet perfect, God sees His Son in you. He sees your heart and your love relationship with Him, beloved, is real right now. He accepts you right now. Just because you’re not yet perfect, it doesn’t mean, beloved, that you’re rejected. The opposite is true. You’re in a real communion in God’s love with him right now. And those things that you’ve fallen short of, Jesus died for those sins. That’s what the Bible tells us in the book of Ephesians, that we stand before him right now, holy and blameless before Him in love. So I want you to have confidence, beloved, in two things at the offset. Number one, I want you to have confidence in God’s love, His desire, His affection, His burning zeal for you. He created you for Himself. And I also want you to have confidence, beloved, that your love, although it’s not yet perfect, it is real, beloved. And God accepts you and loves you and rejoices in you right now, right, hallelujah, where you’re at.
SPEAKER 01 :
You’re listening to Discovering the Jewish Jesus and Rabbi Schneider will be right back. But first, I want to invite you to take Rabbi’s teachings with you wherever you go. With the Discovering the Jewish Jesus podcast available on Spotify, Apple podcast and many more. You can listen to all of Rabbi’s powerful messages anytime. Stay rooted in God’s word. Just search for Discovering the Jewish Jesus on your favorite podcasting platform today. Discovering the Jewish Jesus could not accomplish its mission without partners like you. Together we are preparing men and women for the soon return of Jesus. So please stop by our website to give a one-time donation or to partner with us on a monthly basis. Through your simple act of generosity, you are making an impact. Go to discoveringthejewishjesus.com or call 800-777-7835. And now with the conclusion of today’s message, here is Rabbi Schneider.
SPEAKER 03 :
As we think about this desire for intimacy with Jesus, we need to be confident of our walk with God, that we’re in this divine romance with Him, that we desire to be obedient, that we really do love Him and that He accepts us just where we’re at. He’s never going to love you or me any more or any less than he does right now if we’re really his, if we’re really choosing, beloved, to love him and serve him and choose him and pick up our cross daily, denying ourself to follow him. Amen. It doesn’t mean we’re perfect, but it means it’s desire of our heart. We keep on fighting. We keep on overcoming. When we wake up out of bed every morning, we say, yes, Lord, I choose you today. You’re my goal. You’re my prize. You’re my inheritance. And all day long, we press through every day trying to make those decisions, trying to treat people the way that they should be treated, beloved. When the Lord shows us things, we obey him. And am I talking about just the things that he reveals to us as we’re reading the Bible? Absolutely the things he shows us when we’re reading the Bible. But even the things, beloved, the spirit of God softly is teaching us or whispering to us individually. Things in our life that he’s wanting us to work on that we’re saying, yes, Lord, that was you. And I want to obey what your spirit has shown me, what your spirit’s been speaking to me about. And so as we’re pressing forward in this love relationship, in this divine romance, beloved, I want you to know that Jesus wants to bring us all into an experience that we are emotionally experiencing him in. In reality, that it’s not just about us reading what he did for Paul or reading what he did for David or reading what happened in the life of Abraham. It’s what he’s doing for us also right now in this life, hallelujah, and in this world. you see this is what was prophesied from the very beginning again that’s why he said let us make man in our image why that he could fellowship with us this is why he built the tabernacle in exodus 25. he said to the israelites build me this tabernacle that i might listen dwell with you he wants us to have this encounter with him this relationship with him that’s why he brought israel into the wilderness to mount sinai to bring them near to himself And that’s why Yeshua came once and for all to redeem us by His blood, hallelujah, bringing us into this divine love relationship with the Father and with Him that culminates in the marriage supper of the Lamb. You see, Yeshua is referred to in the Scriptures as the bridegroom, right? And we are the bride. This is love language. This is romance language. This is a relationship, beloved, that’s to be more than talked about. It’s not something that we just study. No, love is something that you live. It’s something that you feel. It’s something that you experience. This is what the Father is calling us to. This is why I said rivers of living water will flow from our innermost being when we’re in this divine romance with him. This is something that is experienced deep down from our guts. This is what makes it exciting. This is why we can be passionate, hallelujah, about Jesus. And when Jesus came, He came as the bridegroom and us as the bride. And once again, it culminates in the marriage supper of the Lamb. And what I want to do now is I want to talk about some basic structures and basic foundations of this relationship that the Lord has and how we can experience it in a deeper way. Beloved, the first foundation that I want to speak about today as we’re laboring to walk with God, to walk with God as Enoch walked with God, to experience this divine romance in a way that touches our emotions and our affections and is real. I want you to understand Jesus is in you. You know, for years, when the Lord first revealed himself to me back in 78 and many times in those first early years and the Apostle Paul type of encounters, I knew that he was real. I knew that he was alive. And I said to myself, what do I need to do to get a hold of him? How can I experience him all the time the way I was able to experience him in these brief encounters that I’ve had with him? So I went to church and I started reading and studying and buying books and studying the scriptures. And it seemed like you need to read the Bible more. You need to pray more. You need to give more money. You need to witness more. And beloved, because I was so hungry for God, whatever was said to me that I needed to do, I did all those things to the nth degree. If you were in back of me at the grocery store, I would have turned around and witnessed to you. I would buy a new Bible and then all of a sudden as I was walking out of the Christian bookstore and I’d find somebody walking down the sidewalk, I’d witness to them. I would say after I got done witnessing to them, do you own a Bible? And they’d say no. And then I’d give them my brand new Bible that I just bought. I can’t tell you how many new Bibles I went through just giving them away. I know this is not true, but I felt at the time that nobody could be doing more, I thought. No one’s trying harder. in their seeking after God than I am. And yet after living like that for over 10 years, beloved, I still hadn’t laid a hold of God in the way that I was looking for. I hadn’t come to an experience in my life that I felt His nearness to me. I hadn’t come to a place in life that I felt his affection for me. I believed in him all right, but I wasn’t experiencing him in a real and tangible way that was fulfilling or that was empowering. I got burned out. I didn’t know what else to do. Every time I heard somebody say, this is what you need to do, I would think, that must be it. That’s what I need to do. And I’d begin to go after with all my gusto for a month or six weeks, only to find out after doing it with all I had after six weeks that still I wasn’t finding what I was searching for. I remember one time somebody said, well, you need to pray the Lord’s Prayer. That’s what you’re missing. And so I started praying the Lord’s Prayer. You know the prayer, our Father that art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. And I would go through the entire Lord’s Prayer, giving special emphasis to each part. So I literally would go to my study, pray the Lord’s Prayer without stopping for three hours. Nothing happened. I said, maybe I’m talking too much. I said, I’m just going to say the Lord’s prayer for an hour and a half. Then I’m going to sit and wait on him for an hour and a half. So I said the Lord’s prayer for an hour and a half. Then I waited on him for an hour and a half. Nothing happened. Then I said, you know what? I’m just going to wait on the Lord for three hours. Beloved, I kid you not. I fell asleep. I was so burned out after this. I was so exhausted. I had so come to the end of my rope. I had just about given up. And at this place, beloved, of total burnout, I felt the spirit of shalom, the spirit of the Lord come upon me. And the spirit of God just revealed to me this. He said, you’ve been searching for me on the outside. You’ve been searching for me in your works. You need to know that I’m inside you. And if you’re going to find me, it’s only going to be as you find me inside. And once the Lord gave me that revelation and brought me into that discovery from that point forward, hallelujah, my life changed. There was a new empowerment. I began to depend, beloved, on the mystery of the gospel, the fact that Jesus, hallelujah, is in me by His Spirit, and He’s in you, too, if you know Him. Beloved, faith is a gift, but faith demands our obedience. Think about it. Abraham received the gift of faith from God, but he had to be obedient and offer up his son. And when we’re obedient to the call of faith, our heart is open and we’re able to receive Father’s blessing. I want to ask you today, if you’re being blessed and encouraged by this ministry, would you offer to the Lord your tithe or your offering through this ministry? In other words, God tells us in His Word, number one, that we should honor Him with our tithes and offerings, and number two, that we should do it through ministries that are feeding us. it’s because of your obedience beloved that the world is being blessed through discovering the jewish jesus and as you are obedient in offering the lord your tithe and offering it will open up your heart to receive even more of god because our faith opens the door for father’s blessing in our life i want to thank you in advance beloved for your tithe and offering through discovering the jewish jesus i know as you’re obedient to the lord he’s going to bless you because of it i love you god bless you and shalom
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. And to take that step of faith right now, just go online and give at discoveringthejewishjesus.com. Or you can also support this ministry by calling us. Our phone number is 800-777-7835. And we want to say thank you for your generosity. So when you give, we’ll make sure that you receive our latest newsletter in the mail. Each issue provides additional content from Rabbi Plus, we’ll also make sure to send you his monthly teaching booklet. It’s a special mini book that’s broken up into four weekly sections that make learning more about God’s word clear and accessible. And then I also want to remind you about an exciting offer that we have available right now. It’s a complimentary resource package that explores the wisdom and the beauty of the Aaronic Blessing. It’s completely free and it includes Rabbi’s PDF guide that walks you through each powerful phrase of the Aaronic Blessing, where you’ll discover how these ancient words of blessing provide power and protection over your life today. it also comes with an audio mp3 message that offers a fresh perspective for applying this blessing to your life as well and we’d love to make sure that you receive your copy so connect online at myfreegift.com forward slash peace and if this ministry has touched your heart in any way while you’re there would you consider supporting us so that more and more people can hear the good news of jesus So please give online today at DiscoveringTheJewishJesus.com. And now, here’s Rabbi with that sacred blessing.
SPEAKER 03 :
Blessings trump curses. And in the book of Numbers chapter 6, we find the Aaronic blessing that God commanded Moses’ brother Aaron, the high priest, to speak over the children of Israel. There’s power in blessing, beloved ones. So take part in receiving Father’s blessing upon your life today.
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 your host, Dustin Roberts, and this program is produced and sponsored by Discovering the Jewish Jesus. Be sure to join us again when Rabbi Schneider helps us to go beyond knowing God in our minds to knowing Him in our hearts. That’s Wednesday on Discovering the Jewish Jesus.
