Yom Kippur and Love-Boldness - David Mitts

Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. (Heb 4:14-16)
Click here to listen to "Yom Kippur and Love - Boldness"
Love never fails.  This has been our declaration.  We cannot fail when we operate in love because love never fails. This is more than a platitude of success. No! Love never fails is a key of reality.  Failure is rooted in the fallen and false reality of a world based in fear.  Fear implies scarcity.  I am afraid, fear tells me because “it” may not be there for me.  Whatever I need, I reason from my fear-based perspective, is then conditional on my performance and my self-righteousness.
Inside myself, based on my history in which my failures are magnified, I know that I am full of weakness. These weaknesses are perceived as the wrongness in my being.  This wrongness needs to be hidden, covered up. I am thrust into the realm of fear, providing for my own covering, my own atonement.  What scares me the most is the exposure of my weaknesses because I know they will betray me in times of stress and turmoil.  Therefore, I must at all times masquerade as if my weaknesses were not actually there.  The root of this is fear and fear leads to shame.  This is the condition of being alone and separated from God, what the Bible calls sin.
Today is Yom Kippur, the Day of the Atonement of Covering by God.  Atonement is love in action.
There is a church myth that God killed an animal to cover Adam and Eve in their nakedness, their weakness providing the basis of sacrifice for sin.  Let’s look at Genesis 3 and pick up the conversation with God describing the new fallen condition that arose because of allowing fear to rule the heart. Verses 9-21:
But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
Here we see the fear-weakness-cover up reality simply expressed.  Don’t get hung up on exactly what naked implies here, just see it as the perspective of exposed weakness that occurs in the kingdom of fear and shame.
And He said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?" The man said, "The woman you put here with me--she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the LORD God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The serpent deceived me, and I ate." So the LORD God said to the serpent, "Because you have done this, "Cursed are you above all livestock and all wild animals! You will crawl on your belly and you will eat dust all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring(seed) and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel." To the woman he said, "I will make your pains in childbearing very severe; with painful labor you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you." To Adam he said, "Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, 'You must not eat from it,' "Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since from it you were taken; for dust you are and to dust you will return." Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Gen 3:9-21)
The first thing I want to discuss is the word cursed.  Cursed in Hebrew in this usage is the word “arrar”.  It is the word picture of an aleph, which means strength and 2 resh’es which means head or authority.  So, in composite, it means to operate in 2 strengths of authority, like being double-minded or doubtful.
Adam and Eve became “arrar” when they chose to listen to the voice of the serpent.  It added a second reference point to the truth of God and His love for them. Once doubt replaced the simplicity of God’s authority in our lives, then we become “arrar” or cursed.  The opposite is to be blessed, baruch.  This is the word picture of the son kneeling in submission to the Father.  In this alignment, blessing flows.  When Yeshua said in John 5:19:
Then Jesus answered and said to them, "Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner. (Joh 5:19)
In this, He was describing the atmosphere of blessing.  It isn’t just that God blesses.  It is that we position ourselves through our humility, to be blessed, to have His love expressed in our lives by trusting in Him.
Going back to Eden, Adam and Eve were aware of nakedness.  Now, I don’t personally think it was the same as what we call nakedness today.  The Hebrew word is “arom” and it is the same word used to describe the cunning of the snake.  I think it has to do with what we do with our listening.  Listening is the key to the kingdom reality in our life, hearing and obeying the Father like John 5:19.
We have seen this played out in our Ancient Paths seminars.  It really doesn’t matter so much what the content of the seminar is about.  What it really is about is the blessing!  The blessing isn’t a prayer we pray or a name recognition of someone. No, the blessing is about alignment with the voice of the Father.  It is when the Father speaks to a participant that they are freed from nakedness, weakness, and clothed with righteousness.  Shame is replaced with confidence.
Adam and Eve became naked when they became double-minded and that resulted in what is called the curse.  The curse is NOT something God did to them because of their disobedience.  God would never curse His own seed.  Fresh and bitter waters cannot come out of the same fountain.  God’s word is only sweet, never bitter.
No. God just told them the consequences of the actions of double-mindedness and how it undermined His blessing in their lives.  The following verses just tell us what living by our own devices looks like.  We now have enemies.  And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel Our double-minded listening causes us to mistrust our enemies.  By contrast, Yeshua said:
"But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. (Mat 5:44-45)
Interesting contrast.  In the double-minded curse, we mistrust, we hate, we war.  In Yeshua, we love and pray.  AND He says this makes us like Him, like the Father!!  By aligning ourselves to His voice, we become like the rain from heaven, with love for all the evil and the good, the righteousness and unrighteous.  If we can’t love the unrighteous, how will they realize how loved they are?
The book of James is probably the clearest expression of the distinction between having the mind of the Lord and being double minded.  Look with me at James, the first chapter beginning with the second verse:
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.(Arrar) But the brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away. Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. (Jas 1:2-12)
First and foremost, I want us to understand that this is about the testing that comes through trials in our lives.  (Exam story).  
When we get in a difficult spot we will either resort to the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong or we will press in for Him.  James is telling us by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, to choose joy.  The picture as I have mentioned before is of a boxer who leads into the fight with joy.  Joy is an offensive weapon of the spirit.  If Satan can’t steal your joy, he can’t steal your victory.
Adam and Eve were naked and unashamed.  They had joy.  BUT they hadn’t learned how to use joy as a weapon.  Every believer has joy, the joy of our salvation.
Though the fig tree should not blossom And there be no fruit on the vines, Though the yield of the olive should fail And the fields produce no food, Though the flock should be cut off from the fold And there be no cattle in the stalls, Yet I will exult in the LORD, I will rejoice in the God of my salvation. The Lord GOD is my strength, And He has made my feet like hinds' feet, And makes me walk on my high places. (Hab. 3:17-19)
In our adversity, we can choose joy! From joy comes strength as Habakkuk tells us.  This is where the endurance is built.  You cannot defeat a consistently joyful person.  Joy is a fruit of love and never fails.  In this place James tells us that we are perfect and complete, lacking nothing.  
Lacking nothing means an abundance mindset.  I am complete in Him! Does that mean I know the solution to my adversity? NO! That’s why James tells us to ask for wisdom.  To ask without being double minded. This brings us full circle.  This is arrar, cursed, double-minded.  It is the life apart from God.
Today is Yom Kippur, the day of covering our nakedness, our arrar nature.  We want to operate in the blessing and not the curse.  The curse is the life of the double-minded, unstable in all of our ways.  
We have one foot in the world and one foot in the kingdom.  It’s time to cross the Rubicon!
The Rubicon is a famous river in Italy that marked the point where Julius Caesar decided to cross the river and thus launch himself to the war that would make him the ruler of Rome.  The term, crossing the Rubicon has since come to mean, making a declaration that you are sold out to a course of action.
Yom Kippur was the national day of atonement for Israel.  This is the Day that God forgave the nation for its sins.  The atonement was eternally given by Yeshua’s sacrifice.  Yom Kippur is now the reminder of that perfect eternal atonement.
Atonement means covering.  God provided atonement in the garden for Adam and Eve by giving them skin.  Skin is the temporary covering for man.  The word of skin is “or”.  This is phonetically the same as the word for light which was man’s original skin, his glory.  Skin became the natural form of light.  The word for skin is Ayin Resh.  Ayin means eye and Resh is the head.  So God gave us a covering that would allow others to see the head.  He covers us not just with skin but with love.
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all transgressions. (Pro 10:12)

Activation
Today we are at the anointing of the covering of love.  It’s time to put that garment on fresh.
First by repenting for double-mindedness.
There is a reason atonement is spelled at-one-ment.  It’s time to cross our own personal Rubicon.  Ask the Lord what in your life you need to cross over on?  Where have you been double minded?
This is the place of boldness, the place where His Mercy and Help in our time of need.
Now let’s take off the nakedness of skin and put back on the true glory of light!  See yourself clothed in light. It is your true eternal nature.  God is light and so are you!

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