God's Wisdom and Our Faith, Victoria Sarvadi's Story

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Hey friends, welcome to the Her God Story podcast where you will always hear a good story to encourage and inspire you in your walk with the Lord.

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I'm your host Jodie Chiricosta, ministry leader at Somebody Cares America International, author and traveler on this journey of faith.

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I encourage you to like or follow this podcast on your favorite streaming platform so you won't miss any of the stories of my amazing guests.

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Now that the school year is underway, it's a great time to commit to some personal growth and we have an effective and very fun idea for you.

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Start a Her God Story podcast club. That's right.

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Encourage some friends, colleagues, neighbors to all listen to the same podcast episode, then gather together and using some prepared episode questions from hergodstory.org or your own,

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discuss what you learned and how God spoke to you over your favorite refreshments. And it's a great way to reach out to friends who don't know Christ yet.

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Include them in the conversation and see what God will do. So gather some friends and try it out.

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When you do, email us at prayer at somebody cares dot org to let us know so we can be praying for you as well.

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Proverbs 18 15 in the NIV says the heart of the discerning acquires knowledge for the ears of the wise seek it out.

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My guest, Dr. Victoria Sorvati has a mandate from the Lord to acquire knowledge, not just for her own edification or glorification, but to help others in their walk with the Lord.

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Now, the story behind this mandate is incredible. She experienced clinical death, and when she woke up, she had a whole new perspective on life.

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Before we get to that story, let me tell you a little more about her.

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Victoria has both masters and doctorate degrees in theology from the former Center for the Study of Biblical Research, which is now under the auspices of the Hebraic Christian global community.

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She's been a certified minister since 2000 and as an author as well as a speaker for conferences congregations women's ministry groups Bible studies and at the vision for Israel sucketh conferences in Jerusalem, Israel.

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She's also the executive director for the march for remembrance in Dallas.

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Victoria has six children 20 grandchildren and is married to Paul Sorvati is the chairman and CEO and co founder of in spirit.

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She's also the founder of the Nathanael foundation whose philanthropic contributions support numerous charities in the US and abroad. Victoria's book, Just a Little Girl tells more of her story and I'm sure you're going to want to read it after you hear her

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and all the proceeds of that book goes toward the Nathaniel foundation. Welcome Victoria. Thank you, Jodie. It's a pleasure to be here.

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So you accepted Jesus as your Savior when you were just 13. What led up to that and how did that decision change your life. Well I was just a normal middle schooler, eighth grade going to Lutheran catechism classes at our church.

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I was actually interested in what the pastor had to say I mean most of the kids were just playing with their paper footballs or whatever they you know back then what they made out of paper and the girls were talking and scribbling and making notes but I was truly interested in what

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he was talking about and he was talking about really the scripture that the whole Lutheran faith I think is founded on and that we are saved by grace through faith it's not of our works, lessening man should boast.

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And so I was listening very intently to him. I don't know it's like the spirit just cut through me. I had had a salvation that was unwarranted, unmerited, yet he wanted to give it to me I didn't have to do anything to get it just receive it through faith.

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And it was just hitting my heart. God was just speaking to me and I don't know what was reverberating inside of me, but I needed to hear it and I just began to weep. The pastor asked his wife to take me out in the hallway and she asked me you know is everything okay at home at school.

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And I said yeah everything's fine. It's what he said. She really didn't have an answer for me. This particular church wasn't I guess real privy to the knowledge of how to bring a person to the Lord. It was just a very formal church.

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I went home because I knew something had happened in me and I started digging in my jewelry box and I found a Jesus Freak little pen that I wore to school.

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And I started telling everybody about what happened last night that I started crying and that was it was really cool. Well you know they said why and I said because what he said that I'm saved just by believing in having faith and everybody just thought oh you're weird you know.

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And I had a friend that in science class Ricky who sat next to me and he says well sound like you got saved. And I didn't know what he meant and so we we met after school and he taught me more he kind of discipled me for a couple of days because I had a lot of questions and

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Ricky was brought up Baptist so he knew some answers. So that's how I started out was that one you know experience in catechism class in the Lutheran Church.

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Yeah God will reach us anywhere won't he?

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Everywhere yes.

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He knows the seeking heart. You know even though you made that decision to follow Christ you weren't in a place where you learned practically how to walk out your faith with the Lord which had a life changing impact on you. Tell us about that.

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Well I think it's really important first of all for people to realize that you can you know bring a person to the Lord and help them see you know with a contrite heart that they need God and repent and confess him.

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But unless you disciple them and teach them there's a constant flow of food spiritual food for that person. They'll just wither and die on the vine. I did not have any anybody to disciple me.

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The church I was going to like I said it was pretty much a formal church. We went through the motions of our services and there wasn't a whole lot of meat there. I really didn't have that opportunity to grow in the Lord.

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So you know you go back to what you know and your friends and your circles of influence. And so this was in the early 70s or mid 70s and I never got into the drug scene but it was just a time of rebellion.

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And that's pretty much what was going on in our school. I've had an unexpected pregnancy whenever I was a teenager and finished high school with a baby on my hip got married very early.

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Paul was in college and we were you know trying to live our lives. We need just a little girl of course trying to be a mom. We took the reins we took the challenge.

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Paul was raised in a very conservative home. He has got you know just an incredible understanding and wisdom for his age. We started our life out very early very young. Our family started to grow from you know those teenage years.

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By the time you were 19 you had a toddler a husband in college and you were looking forward to adding to your family. But when you were pregnant with your second child things didn't go as smoothly. So what happened Victoria?

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We're not really sure but somewhere in mid pregnancy maybe a little bit later in the last trimester I started really showing some signs of being very sick. And I was sleeping a lot. My skin started turning yellow jaundice.

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So obviously there was something going on. The doctors decided they wanted to leave the baby there for as long as they could even though I was getting sicker and sicker. He was just very immature as far as his growth was concerned.

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I was a full nine months and three days when I went into labor. Just before I went into labor I fell into a coma. You know it was one of those situations where there was a critical health need for the mother and they needed to get the baby out as quickly as possible.

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He was born three pounds 14 ounces very very small. He lived for an hour and he passed away. At this point in time I was still in a coma. They put me under a general anesthesia so I was like you know double asleep. Not only you know from the comatose that I was in but also the anesthesia that was not going through my system in order to be cleansed out because my liver was failing. So it was a dire moment at that point.

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So you actually were transferred to another hospital because the problem was so critical and in that process you clinically died is that right?

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These are very interesting situations that I really want to kind of go over because I think people have these questions a lot. A person in a coma can they hear you? Absolutely I could hear. I had to be kind of aroused a bit from my sleep.

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People had to shake me and talk really loud and then I would begin to comprehend what they were saying. Otherwise I drift back. I remember being in recovery. They were actually waiting for an ambulance to come and take me to the Houston Med Center. I was in a just a local community hospital and they didn't have the machines to keep me alive. It looked like I was going into multiple organ failure.

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As I was laying there and Paul was trying to communicate with me our pastor was there next to him and next to him was a nurse. How do I know that? I saw it. I don't know how to explain it. Later on when Paul and I were talking I said who was that nurse that was next to you know our pastor in the recovery room and he says you never opened your eyes.

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I said but I saw her. Who was she? He of course was floored. I remember the pastor saying the last rites over me and reading Psalm 23 and I remember thinking I must be dying. I was a little confused as to what was going on. I was kind of intermittent as far as being able to comprehend anything.

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I was confused about the nurse because she seemed to be very upset and crying and he says well that was the nurse that baptized our baby before he passed away and she was invested in you and was you know very connected to our family at that point in time and she wanted to see after your welfare.

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It's very weird that I actually saw this. Then I got into the ambulance and I saw the ambulance. I saw the inside of the ambulance. I saw the technician that was working on me. I saw the colors. I remember the conversations.

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Again Paul says you were out. You were in a coma. There's no way. So there were episodes of that time period that I actually remember and even to this day remember.

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So anyway we got there and I'm not going to go into a lot of detail with Paul because that's his story but he had a come to Jesus experience in the ambulance on his way there and God just filled him with faith and turned him around and just gave him his salvation experience but he was a different guy coming out of that ambulance than he was going in.

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The doctors took a look at me in Methodist Hospital in Houston and they said you know call the family. We don't expect her to live. Wow. So he had faith from that ambulance ride. The spirit talked to him and he said well she's going to be fine and the doctor just shook his head because I wish I shared the same sentiment.

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This was my death experience. I was in intensive care. They were working hard to stabilize me. Apparently something went wrong and I started coding and I started following what I say is my time in space. My time in this life. My time in this world.

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What I'm going to say doesn't make a whole lot of sense in the natural because it was spiritual. There's hardly any words to explain. Sometimes when I say some people say it sounds new age. It's not new age. It was an experience that was supernatural. That's all I can tell you.

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But it's like I fell through my own universe. I fell through congruent lines of time and space that were mine. What do I mean by that? Well we live in time and space. God lives in timelessness outside of time and he gives each of us a time to live and a time to die.

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As I was going through what I understood even at that time was my future universe where I'm going to spend my time while I'm in this body in what space I'm going to be in. It was like there were these congruent lines of decisions I could make in my life.

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If I made this decision then this would happen. All these different choices I had in my future and my future would have within it blessings and then sometimes it would just be darkness and I would see all these things as I was going through it and I understood that these places where the lines met were my choices.

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And some of those choices were full of what I call precious gems. Gems of great price. Gems of understanding, knowledge. What I witnessed in my life to make it be a testimony. I saw these places all along the way in my own universe that I would experience and then at the very end of that tunnel was a huge wealth of precious gems like gold, like greater than rubies.

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But all of this is through the choices and the wisdom that we get from the Lord. It's not physical. It's not monetary gain that we get but it is all spiritual gain and wonderful riches that we get as we experience our life in this time and space that we occupy.

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And so anyway I was at the end of that tunnel. I came out and I was now in the ICU, the intensive care unit at Methodist Hospital and I was thuddered to my body and I couldn't move any further than where I was.

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I was above it and next to me was an angel and I knew the angel by name. I called him by name. His name was Peretz and I didn't know at the time what that name meant but I do once I started taking Hebrew years later.

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It's the one who stands in the gap. Hebrew is interesting too because it also takes just by changing a little jot or tittle, a vowel sound, you can change that word into an opposite meaning. And so Peretz can also mean, Peretz can mean one who breaks through.

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And so the one who stands in the gap and the one who breaks through is the one I was talking to. And if you understand, and I didn't know this then, later on I found out that a messianic reference in the Jewish understanding comes from Zemelechi where he says that the son of righteousness comes with healing in his wings.

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And it also says that he's the breaker, the one who breaks through. It's the breaker that breaks through. It's a messianic reference of the Messiah.

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That is a very interesting aspect that I found later that it wasn't just an angel but it was the angel of the Lord that appeared to me.

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And somebody said, well, you can't see God and if you do you die. And I said, well yeah, I was dead. So I couldn't really see his face actually because there was so much light radiating from it that you knew there was a face behind that light.

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But it was beautiful and we were able to communicate and he told me that I was, this was the mandate that you mentioned, that I was to go back because I really didn't want to. I wanted to go see my child.

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I said, where's my baby? He says he's on the lap of the father. He says, but you're going to go back and you're going to go through that time and space, you know, that continuum, that time continuum that is already designed for your life.

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And you're going to experience all these things in real time. And I said, well, that's okay. I really like it here. I tried to reason with him.

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So I really think it's a stay. And he says, no, it's been ordained. These gifts are irrevocable. You're going to receive all that God has planned for you and you're going to teach others what you understand.

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I had no choice. And then he says, besides this, the Lord has granted the prayers of the saints that are praying for you.

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And I found that later, there were all kinds of prayer vigils and intercessors that were praying for me at that point in time. So I felt myself being brought back. I woke up a little bit later.

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And those were the first words out of my mouth. I said, Paul, the Lord wants us to acquire more knowledge and help more people.

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And that was not, you know, not hello. How are you? That was the whole floor. It's a very interesting experience that just spun me around and just sent me on a trajectory of seeking the Lord in his face and finding out what he's all about.

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Yeah, you know, I was reading 2nd Corinthians last night. I think it might be in chapter 12, 11 or 12, where Paul says, I was taken up into third heaven.

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I don't know if it was in bodily form or in the spirit, but I can't even explain what happened. Now I'm not saying you were necessarily in the third heaven, but when we have those spiritual encounters, sometimes nobody else can understand them unless God gives you spiritual insight.

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I relate to that so well when Paul says that because it's just not, I can't exactly tell you, you know, what happened, but I know that it wasn't the normal, you know, what we experience day to day in our body in this time and space. So definitely in the spirit realm, it's different.

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I have to say it wasn't frightening. I wasn't afraid. I wasn't scared. I was very comforted. I felt it. Perfect peace. I loved talking to Peretz. I mean, he was so full of love and acceptance and grace.

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Like I said, I've known him all my life. When I saw him, I called his name. He didn't introduce himself and that just kind of blew me away too that I know you.

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So after that supernatural experience, you said you started becoming aware of your physical surroundings again and you began to heal. It wasn't instantaneous though. I mean, it was a process you had to go through physically and emotionally from all that you lost as you grieved the loss of your son.

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So what happened during that time and how did you process all that happened?

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The pastor came in and of course, this is when the story came out about the nurse. They said that we were able to baptize your son before he passed away. And that doctrinal statement really bothered me.

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I questioned him. I said, so you believe that my son would not have gone to heaven? Had he not been baptized? And he says, well, unfortunately that, you know, he said this, unfortunately, this is the tenets of our faith.

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I said, well, I don't believe that. I don't believe that whatsoever. And so he even says, well, I have my own beliefs. But you don't believe what the church teaches.

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Apparently he didn't. And so that sent me on a trajectory to find out more about baptism. And what does that mean? And so we had friends that were Baptist. I thought since they were Baptist, they might know about baptism, you know, logic.

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And we began to talk to them and they invited us to their church. And what was really interesting about coming from a formal church, going into an evangelical church was that we began to realize how important evangelism is and how important having a testimony is to share that.

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This really bolstered our faith. We began to read the Bible now. You know, we got water baptized. We began to understand more about the Lord and our walk with him and how we're to share that faith.

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And that's what started our first of all was moving into more of an evangelical. Let's find out more about what we need to do and how we are to live our lives. I was headstrong to get pregnant again.

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And I did. But this is what is very interesting. And now I was not a spirit filled believer, which means I didn't have the evidence of this, the Holy Spirit baptizing me with all kinds of gifts. I didn't have all those gifts.

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I didn't ask for it anyway. At that point in time, when I was in the hospital, still recovering, I began to get these words that were coming to me in my mind and they were strong. It's almost like an audible voice was talking to me.

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I mean, I couldn't turn it off. And so I started grabbing all the envelopes from all the cards people gave me and I began to write down what I was hearing in my head.

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And it was as if God was talking to me. And he said, basically, it said that in less than two years, in a year, less than two is what it was like that words. I will give you another child and this child will be great in the sight of the Lord will do great exploits for my kingdom.

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I did not know what an exploit was, but that word was in my head.

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It will do great exploits for my kingdom and will lead many to the saving knowledge of the Lord. And this was basically a promise that God gave me. And so I wrote that down and I thought, what was that? What did I just experience?

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Well, I've never experienced a prophecy before. So I gave it to Paul and he read it and he goes, wow. And I told him, Paul was just so it was like otherworldly, you know, and I was already in this kind of otherworldly state.

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And I said, when you die and come back, you are still kind of disconnected from your body. I remember thinking I would look at my hand and move it and say, how am I doing that? Just a thought and I'm moving this body.

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So being disconnected from the body and coming back in it, you're aware of the separateness of your spirit man and your body. And I remember my tongue feeling very thick, you know, when I would have to use it to talk when as before, I didn't need to use my tongue to talk, I would just think it, you know.

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And so this big, thick muscle in my mouth, I had to manage it again. And I didn't like it. I remember feeling cotton mouthed. I would feel sensations and tingling in my spine that this is, and that's exactly where I felt the sensation of leaving my body was.

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Sometimes I would feel like my spirit man was like, let's get out here. Maybe, I don't know. I just felt the separateness, let's just put it that way, of the body from the spirit.

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There were some very interesting supernatural things that were happening in our lives at that time. But we were growing, we were growing. This is what acquiring knowledge was all about. I needed to grow in my knowledge of God so that he could pour in his wisdom in me.

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Wisdom is supernatural. You can't acquire wisdom, but you can acquire knowledge. You can get in the Word, you can search out the scriptures, you can allow that Word to pour in you. And when that happens, it changes us.

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Our DNA literally begins to change. We become spirit man. Our spirit man comes alive and God begins to nurture us in the spirit. Then he pours his hoh-chmah, hoh-chmah is wisdom, and his wisdom is supernatural. It comes in, he instills it in us.

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Sometimes we'll be talking and all of a sudden we'll be wondering what we need to do and a thought comes to us and we're thinking, I know what I need to do. Because the spirit is giving you hoh-chmah, guidance and understanding from a spiritual level and it's not coming from something that you read.

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So this is something that is very, very important that we acquire the knowledge so we can realize it and our mind starts being transformed by the spirit that's within us, changing us so that we can receive more of God.

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And it's so important for believers to understand because so many go through life listening to sermons or reading books about the Bible, but not really digging into the Word of God themselves.

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And what you said is so true. The Word of God transforms us. Our spiritual DNA does change. The Holy Spirit does renew our mind, but it takes us getting into the Word of God and letting his Word wash over us so that all the worldly things can be eliminated.

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So you set off on this journey to acquire knowledge, not just any knowledge of course, but knowledge of God. Tell us what God did in some of leading you through step by step. You mentioned going to the Baptist Church. That was kind of step one.

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How else did God lead you and teach you?

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Well, you got to remember when we were in the formal churches in the Lutheran Church, we were talking about, you know, going to the Baptist Church to learn more about baptism and things like that. And I just kind of shared that with one of the ladies there.

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She goes, Oh, no, do not go. Do not go. No, just don't go to Baptist Church. So there was this point of animosity, you know, between the parent lady, at least this woman.

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But we went because we felt compelled to go. Now we're reading the Word. Now the Bible is open to us. We're actually learning. I'm going to Bible studies, women's groups. I'm reading about this Holy Spirit.

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And I'm going, what is this? And I'm asking my Baptist friends, and what do they say? Oh, stay away from that.

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That is not for you to know. And I'm going, but it's in the Bible. You know, I have to know. And then one of the other ladies pulled me to the side, she goes, come with me. This week we're going to go to a meeting, a women's aglo meeting.

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And you'll find out what this Holy Spirit is all about. And like I said, this experience put me on this trajectory of acquiring the understanding.

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And so I went to the women's aglo meeting, got baptized in the Holy Spirit. Now I had the fire of God was now inside of me. I had a yearning to, I mean, experience and experience him on a whole other level.

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I started realizing now with the Spirit of God in me, he wants to use us as instruments in his hands to heal the sick and to deliver those who are oppressed and to counsel and things that I really don't have in my own capacity to do or understand.

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Now I have the Holy Spirit within me and he is working for me to do great miracles.

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And at that point in time, I had another child and this child was born with a heart issue. And I mean, we were talking within weeks of me receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit and my husband as well.

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He kind of followed me around saying, what's God telling you now?

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And so he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and we went to a charismatic church and we took the baby up there. She was just born. She was not even a week old, just a few days old. And we took her up there because they were going to be doing some tests on her the next week.

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They found some holes in her heart. They wanted to repair them. And there was a Sunday, we were going to take her the next day to Texas Children's Hospital.

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And we had the elders pray for this baby and unbelievable. It's the next day the doctors were saying, there are no holes in this baby's heart.

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They're looking at the two different films that they had made and it looked like a different patient.

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You know, that made believers out of us that God's power is real and that he does work through us. And that just got me more and more involved. In fact, it wasn't long before Paul became an elder in the church and I became a Bible teacher.

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So we were really growing in the Lord. As I was teaching in Leviticus, I was in Leviticus 23, and I started reading about these are the feasts of the Lord. And it was going through all the different feasts of Passover and Shavuot, which is kind of cost, Tabernacles.

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And I'm reading this and it says, you know, you're to do this to all generations. And I know that Jesus really looked forward to Passover.

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I mean, he desired with perfect desire to have Passover with his disciples. And I know we're supposed to emulate Christ.

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And I'm thinking, how do we do this? And I know, okay, well, communion. And very few people realize that communion is an abbreviated Passover. It really is.

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But what was this Passover? Because he couldn't wait to explain and reveal himself in these Passover elements.

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And so I said, I wish I understood the Passover that Yeshua went to. At this point in time, we were about to move to a different church, different neighborhood, different city in the Houston area.

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And so we're moving to Kingwood. We were really just realizing that we couldn't make the commute anymore all the way over to bringing in Cyprus area.

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It was just a long way, especially with all the kids events and, you know, all the the team things that they were doing.

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So we needed to find another church. So we were kind of going back and forth from this one church to our home church.

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And when we were there one day visiting, the pastor says, I am going to be bringing in a messianic Jewish rabbi.

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And he is going to be doing a Passover Seder for us and explaining all the elements.

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And I thought, there it is. You know, my heart's desire is to understand this Passover.

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We went. I was hooked. I was like, I need to know more about this. I began to realize that Jesus was Jewish.

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He didn't go to the Lutheran Church. He didn't go to the Baptist Church. He was Jewish.

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He went to the synagogues. You know, he went to the temple. He practiced Judaism.

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There's something in Hebrew called halakha. Halakha comes from the word halek, which means to walk.

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We translated in our Bibles as the way. And so the way of Christ or the halakha of Yeshua was how he interpreted the scripture for us so that we could live it out and walk it out.

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And so there were various different rabbis who had their own halakha. But most of the halakha in the Jewish faith was pretty standard.

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And part of that was the feast and Sabbath and so on and so forth.

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So I began to realize, you know, he taught this to his disciples. His disciples followed his halakha.

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And then they began to teach the Gentiles the halakha.

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Now, it changed a bit where we didn't have to have all of the circumcision laws and things of this nature.

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But I didn't understand his faith from a first century context.

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I didn't understand the faith of Yeshua from his culture, from his language, from his idioms. And this is why I really wanted to zero in on this aspect of this time period.

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So I went to school and I've met all these wonderful Hebrew scholars.

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I couldn't get enough of understanding the traditions and culture and faith of the first century.

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Now, I also learned that Judaism of the first century is different than the rabbinic Judaism of today.

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I don't want to get that confused. Rabbinic Judaism is without the temple.

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The temple hub is gone. And so the tenets of Judaism has changed to doing good deeds and doing what is called mitzvot and prayer.

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And so it's taken a different direction.

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But I have to also admit that the faith of Yeshua of the first century followers and what that has become in the fourth century,

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when Constantine the Great began to change the faith and make it more Latinized and Romanized, de-Judaizing it has also taken a different angle too.

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And so these two faiths are going in, I would say opposite.

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I want to call them ditches because, you know, we need to get back on the straight and narrow.

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And all of us need to come back and center back into what was the faith of Yeshua really like.

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And that's my heart. That's my heart.

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And so what we need to do is to teach our ministry is understanding the faith, the first century faith of Yeshua and how to apply it into your life today.

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The scripture is very clear that says Jesus fulfilled all the law and the prophets, so we don't have to try to fulfill them.

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No. Well, there are some things that have not been fulfilled yet that will be fulfilled in the second coming.

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So we look forward to other things that are in the prophets that are going to be fulfilled.

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What does that mean? A lot of people think fulfill means now that he's done them, we don't have to worry about doing them anymore.

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We don't have to honor the Passover or we don't have to honor the Sabbath because he is our Sabbath and he is our Passover.

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That's all true. But all of that was called a mikra.

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Whenever you see the word convocation, when it was 23, these are convocations to the Lord.

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Those were practices. They were rehearsals, rehearsals of what was to come so that when he did show up on the scene,

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they recognize him. And many of the Jews did recognize him.

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About a third of them at that time recognized Messiah and thousands, multitudes followed him.

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But there was just a handful.

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There was those who were in charge of the court, the Sanhedrin, that didn't want Yeshua to take that title on.

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They were very evil. Jesus called them evil.

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They were the ones that really initiated and caused his death to occur by pushing the issue in this kangaroo court

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that happened on a early morning on Passover morning.

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This is true. I would say fulfill is more like what we would say, how does one fulfill the Constitution?

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If we have a president that says, I'm a president candidate, I will fulfill the Constitution of the United States of America.

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It doesn't mean that when he does it, it's gone. It's over with.

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It means that he enforces it and he makes it real. He makes it important.

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He makes it mean something and that we stand on it, we're girded in it.

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And so we don't just do away with it.

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Yeshua actually says, you know, I have not come to abolish the laws, the instructions.

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Really, the word should be instructions, not laws, because we have this negative idea of laws.

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Instructions. I have not come to abolish God's instructions to you, but to enforce them, to fulfill them, to do them, to honor them, to ratify them.

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And in doing so, then we see the importance of those things and how do we apply those things to our lives?

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There's a whole lot to say about that. I do want to say one thing.

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This always spurs ideas and conversations with everybody.

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They say, well, you know, Christ is the end of the law.

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OK, again, because we don't know the Hebrew, because we don't know the traditions, because we don't know the culture, we kind of make these quick judgments.

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And we're taught this. We're taught this, you know, from the pulpits.

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And it's because the pastors don't know. If you really understood what that scripture means, the word instructions, Torah, comes from the word Yara.

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And Yara is an archery term. It means a bullseye.

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And so when we say Christ is the bullseye of God's laws, of God's instruction, that changes everything.

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We just don't know the meanings of the words in their rich context.

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We think it's over with. We don't have to deal with it anymore. No, it's the bullseye.

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Whenever you receive Christ, you are hitting the Torah instruction on the bullseye.

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So now you have a different feeling toward the Torah. It's not some antiquated book that's not for you anymore.

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It actually means something. Yeshua told the Pharisees that everything written in the Torah is about him.

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Everything. He said, if you would believe Moses, you would believe me because everything Moses said was about me.

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Every piece of furniture in the temple, every festival, every feast that's written in Leviticus, every tradition, really, it's mandate.

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The mandates that God gave the Jewish people was all about getting ready for the Messiah so that they would recognize him when he came.

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You know, I look forward to those prophecies that are still yet to be fulfilled, ratified, made aware and known in our time, hopefully, that when he comes, he will actually do.

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And we should keep our faith, our head in the prophets, be looking for, you know, what does Ezekiel say?

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What does Jeremiah say about the end of days? That should be something that should be on our hearts and on our mouth.

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So we should be delving into that. Daniel and Revelation are the same story. They're the same vision.

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It's the end time vision of what is to come. So putting those two together, we see a beautiful picture we begin to form that fills in a lot of gaps.

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So there's a lot of prophetic books that if we would integrate into our faith, we'll be able to recognize the Messiah when he comes again.

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Yeah. But, you know, Jesus also left a very clear way to obey him when he said, a new commandment I give to you, and that is to love one another.

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And when I look back, you know, I think about God's love, agape love, you know, not the worldly understanding of love.

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I look back at just say the Ten Commandments. Love drives all of those.

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If we are living in agape love, we don't have to think about all of those.

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I mean, they're kind of a mirror of love, you know, Jodi, you're right.

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You hit the nail on the head in Romans. It says that when the Gentiles began to do the very thing that the Torah requires, it's because they have had the Torah written in their heart.

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It's something that God writes in his instructions. I want to make that clear.

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Instructions is the better word than laws. Now we have been set free from the curse of the law because the law of Christ Jesus and the spirit of the law is now in us.

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It's still the law of God. It's still the instruction of God.

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But we understand the spirit of the law of Christ Jesus that now has taken away, really, the laws that were written against us.

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What was that? It's the penalties.

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But all the blessings that are in the Torah are still for us because it's part of the covenant promises.

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When we come into covenant with him, we have the promises of God that's written in his Torah that are a part of our relationship with him.

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That things are written against us has been nailed to the cross. Those are the penalties.

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That's what we deserve, okay, which is death.

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That has been taken away. But his blessings and his Mishpachim, which is how we behave, like you just said, we behave in love.

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And God begins to write that in us. And we inherently begin to do the things that Torah requires.

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Because if the word of God or if the Torah of God is so bad, why does he want to write it in your heart?

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He wants to write those things that causes us to walk in love and walk in truth and walk in righteousness, not in your own understanding,

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not in your own righteousness that you know, what you've done because you felt like it was the right thing to do.

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A lot of times we do a good thing, but it's motivated in selfishness.

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And so, you know, we're not that you have to not let your right hand know what the left hand's doing or whatever.

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But there are times whenever that just shouldn't matter.

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We're doing something because the Lord is guiding us to do it. And it doesn't matter if anybody knows.

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I love what you said. You know, God writes it on our heart. That's a prayer that I have often.

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God, put your law in my mind and write it on my heart so I don't sin against you.

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I pray that for my kids. I pray that for our family. You know, it's one of those because God's already promised us to do it.

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So we're just agreeing with his desire when we pray that.

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And he gives us the power to do it by his Spirit.

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You know, there are three things that, you know, when we think about God's plans and purposes, you know,

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it seems like a vast thing. Like, how can we know what all his plans and purposes are?

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You can. You can know. You know, the main purpose that God... Why are you here?

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Why are we having this conversation? Why are we living, you know, walking around eating lettuce?

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Why are we doing this? OK?

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And it's because God has a purpose, and that is to bring heaven to earth, to marry the earth,

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to bring his kingdom down where the heavenly Jerusalem marries the earthly Jerusalem.

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His purpose is to create or recreate or restore this earth.

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It says the whole creation is waiting for the restoration of all things.

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That's called the Tikkun Olam in Hebrew, the restoration of all things.

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All right, we go back to the beginning when God created the earth.

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It was a playground really for Adam and Eve.

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The mountain of God was apparently on or connected to the earth.

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And there was a staircase that you could go up and down.

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The Garden of Eden is not on the earth. It's on the mountain of God.

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That's what it says in Ezekiel 28.

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And so they would come up to the Garden of Eden and they would talk with God, walk with God.

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The angels trotted on the mountain.

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Ezekiel 28 tells you a whole lot about what went on in that mountain.

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That's where, you know, the snake, everybody thinks a snake was talking to Adam and Eve.

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No, it's Nahash. Nahash is an idiomatic word.

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It does mean reptile, too, but it's how we use it.

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That snake down, you know, that mean old snake that lives in that house, he's terrible.

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You know, we use it as an idiomatic word for a bad, evil person.

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It actually means enchanter, deceiver.

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If you go to Ezekiel 28, you're able to see what that angel looked like.

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And it was beautiful. Its skin was like had rubies and pearls and, you know, all these beautiful gems.

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You can imagine a person looking like that instead of what we have, a skin.

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That was the covering for this angel.

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He was perfect in beauty, perfect in wisdom.

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And so you can imagine that type of entity.

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That person would be intrigued, Eve would be intrigued and looking at them

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and being just kind of mesmerized by the sight of this angel that says,

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oh, if you eat of this tree, you'll be just like me and you can make your own decisions.

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You can be your own God.

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And this is what we fight today.

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People want to be their own God. They want science, you know, to prove something.

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They don't want to talk and walk with God and let the hulkma, the wisdom of God,

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just flow into them so they can live their life that way.

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You know, a lot of people, there are people in neighborhoods that are very wealthy.

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And one person, you know, maybe embezzles or does evil things in order to get to where they are.

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And then another person just goes into debt and really desires the look of good life,

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but they really can't afford it.

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But then there's another that uses the principles of God and wants to please him.

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And God just keeps on pouring blessings into that person.

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They're all living in a very similar house. They're all driving very similar cars.

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They have all the material things that look like they're all the same, but they're not the same.

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You know, God gives wealth and he adds no sorrow to it.

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The wealth of the one that's in debt is not going to stay.

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Eventually they're not going to be there anymore.

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And then the evil one, they'll either be in jail, they'll be dead, there's no blessing in it.

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There's no sorrow added to the ones who trust in the Lord to lead them in life.

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And then he just pours into their life the blessings that come from obedience.

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So anyway, I was talking about what God wants.

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And you know, in the beginning, Adam and Eve were destined to live forever.

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They were designed to live forever.

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But because of sin, they were banished.

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The mountain of God was removed and they were banished to the lower aspects of the earth.

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Because the earth, they were given dominion over the earth.

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And because they bowed down to Satan and obeyed him instead of God,

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they absolutely refused to obey God, blatantly denied his instructions.

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Then a conqueror, which would have been the Nahash, the serpent,

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he would receive the spoils of the one he conquered.

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So he received this earth and he is now the prince of the air, the prince of darkness.

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His forces are alive and well on this earth because he has taken the dominion,

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took it from Adam and Eve.

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And he set up his kingdom that these are the spiritual wickedness and the authorities in the high places.

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These are the ones that are controlling the people of the earth

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and leading them into intrigue and vanity and mammon

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and whatever is in front of your face to lead you away from the Lord.

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And believe me, it is rampant, especially now in this day and time,

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to lead you away from God and the truth.

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In fact, you ridiculed if you mentioned God, the Bible or being a believer or a Christian.

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And so darkness is getting darker, but also the light is getting brighter.

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Many are coming to that revelation that I don't want to be like what's going on in the world

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and God is adding to his kingdom.

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But what is the end game?

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The end game is to bring God's kingdom back into the earth,

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the restoration of what it was in the beginning.

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There are three things that must happen in order for that to come to pass.

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One is God has got to redeem his people unto himself.

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So the redemption is all written in the Passover, in the Passover feast.

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There are three feasts in Passover, Passover Unleavened Bread and Bikurim,

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which is the feast of firstfruits.

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Yeshua was crucified on one, he was buried on another, and he was raised on the next one.

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So these feasts have within them the very essence of what they mean,

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the story of the crucifixion burial and the resurrection of the Redeemer.

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God came to redeem us and he shows us in the Passover season this rehearsal, if you will,

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and now a memorial of what his first plan was, plan A.

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Plan B, while we are believers here on this earth,

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we need to have the power of the Spirit to navigate in this earth because it's a fallen world.

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The Spirit of darkness is, like I said, it's rampant.

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And so he gives us the power of the Holy Spirit.

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This is Shavuot. We call it Pentecost in Greek.

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And it's the power of the Holy Spirit living in us so that we can talk to others about the Lord.

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And really in Ephesians 3, it says that it's a mystery of God that he's revealed to us

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in order for the church to let the principalities and powers know what the will of God is.

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So what does that mean?

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Can you imagine before Shavuot, Satan had his reign over the people.

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He could manipulate them. He could speak to them. He could lie to them, whisper in their ear.

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And people were affected by the principalities and powers that ruled the earth.

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But whenever the Holy Spirit now came and dwelled in man, which was the second plan B,

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now the Spirit of God could rise up and say, Satan, in the name of Yeshua,

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I command you to leave me. You cannot speak to me anymore.

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I refuse. The Spirit of God is upon me.

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And all of a sudden now, can you imagine the principalities and powers who hadn't experienced that before?

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Whoa! We have got people on the earth that are filled with the Spirit of God.

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They're telling us what God's will is, and we can't touch them.

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Yeah. There's so much there.

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Where, if people want to dig into this more, Victoria, what resources or...

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You know, first of all, get my book. That will get your tongue wet.

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But then after that, I would recommend Dr. Richard Booker, because he has got a way.

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He is brilliant. He's a brilliant Hebraic scholar, a way of taking these very deep concepts

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and making them understandable for the lay person.

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I mean, you get very, very deep with Dr. Booker.

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He's got Jesus and the biblical feast that really helps explain what I was talking about.

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I never got to the third season, which is the fall feast.

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That's the second coming.

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Yeshua was crucified on the Passover, was buried on leavened bread, was raised on bichorim or firstfruits.

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The Spirit came on Shavuot. Those are the first four feasts that are listed in Leviticus 23.

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He has written out His plan. So what's the next one?

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It's the fall feast, and it is trumpets with the shout of the angel and the trumpet, voice of the trumpet.

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That should spur our minds.

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And then Yom Kippur, which is the division, those who are written in the Book of Life and those who aren't.

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So there's the separation.

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And then Tabernacles, where God comes down to tabernacle with man.

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So we see that that will be fulfilled.

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And I believe on the days, just like the first four were.

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So this plan of Plan A, Redeemer being sent, Plan B, Holy Spirit being sent,

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so we can navigate in this evil world.

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And then Plan C, to be instituted so that God can separate evil from light,

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from those who are good, and set up His kingdom and restore it back unto Himself.

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The Takun Olam, the restoration of all things.

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God's plan, all right in front of us, all written in the feast.

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Dr. Richard Booker's book, Jesus and the Biblical Feast, is a perfect one for that.

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Yeah, and so I'm sure there's a lot of people out there thinking, I don't know anything about those feasts,

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because I always skipped over Leviticus and some of those books of the Bible that,

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you know, if you don't really know the reasoning that they're there, you want to skip over them.

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But boy, all of that, like you said, is a glimpse at God's plan and what is happening in heaven, in heavenly places.

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So when you have that perspective and that mindset, reading those books becomes a totally different thing.

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Yeah, we need to ask the Lord to give us Revelation knowledge, chokma, wisdom, as we read that.

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And you're going to find those words that were once just boring, maybe, explode and come off the page at you

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when you start seeing this from the Hebraic perspective and what His intention was in the very beginning.

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So, Victoria, just share a moment about the Nathaniel Foundation.

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We decided to, when our company went public, to take a tenth of our shares and put it in the foundation.

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And then we tied to it every single year and often even throughout the year as we see these needs.

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But this foundation has helped a lot of ministries.

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We are so burdened by what God is doing right now in the end of days.

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The Jewish people, God has got a plan for the Jewish people.

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He's going to pour out a spirit of grace and supplication upon them, according to Zechariah 12.

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And He's going to have them return to their own land.

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And He's going to speak to them there and give them a heart of flesh.

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So we see that the Spirit is going to move upon our brothers and sisters, the ones that brought us the Torah,

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the ones that brought us the Messiah, and the ones that are to be the light to the nations.

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And, of course, we're grafted into that.

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We're grafted into the promises of this covenant and into the commonwealth of Israel.

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So there is a real push in our understanding to help the Lord in that capacity.

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God, what do you want us to do to help the Jewish people come to this point in time with the spirit of grace and supplication?

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And it's already happening. We're seeing great strides.

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The Orthodox community has reached out to us.

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We have symposia and colloquia with them.

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They want to find out what we have in common.

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First of all, they want to find out why do you love Israel?

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There are so many Christians that love Israel, and they're Zionists, Christian Zionists at heart.

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They want to know why, because they're intrigued by that.

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And then when they find out that there's really a desire to connect to them without an agenda,

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then they relax and they laugh and we become friends.

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I'm also friends with a lot of Reform Jews,

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and we find that what we have in common with them is our desire to say never again to the Holocaust

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and to the discrimination of the Jewish people, anti-Semitism, and the likes of that.

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They appreciate that, and so they're saying,

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wow, you want to walk with us shoulder to shoulder, and we said absolutely.

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So this is some of the things that our foundation does.

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And we also help a lot of ministries that are on the state side,

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and we help widows, orphans, the poor, the homeless.

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These are some of the other mandates that God has given us.

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So this foundation is really just all about, you know,

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if you said the philanthropic aspects of living in this world,

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in this fallen world, and helping as much as we can.

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And as we close, Victoria, would you share about a woman in the Bible

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who's encouraged or inspired or taught you something?

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The one that really comes to mind is Ruth, because she was a Moabite.

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She was a Gentile from the nations that, you know, weren't—

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it wasn't God's chosen nation that He gave His inheritance to His people.

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It was another nation.

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And she was adopted basically into that nation and that people.

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And she was a Christian Redeemer.

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Of course, that all points to Yeshua, our Jewish Messiah,

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that comes into our heart and takes residence and becomes our husband.

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I just relate to her in so many ways, and her faithfulness,

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and how she's willing to leave her ways and join the Lord

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and join the Jewish people in theirs.

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She is a heroine to me.

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In 2 Chronicles 1-10, King Solomon asks God,

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give me wisdom and knowledge that I may lead this people

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for who is able to govern this great people of yours.

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And he is delighted.

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You see, Solomon didn't seek to acquire wisdom and knowledge

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purely for his own benefit.

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He was looking to the interests of others.

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Victoria, too, she's acquired a lot of knowledge,

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as you've just heard, to help others, though,

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walk in their walk with the Lord.

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And God loves to lead and equip us with everything we need

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so that we can bless others through His word and knowledge as well.

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So, Victoria, would you take a moment

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to pray for our listening friends?

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Absolutely. It's an honor.

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Well, Father God, you are in control.

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You sit on the throne of holiness and righteousness.

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Lord, all wisdom belongs to you.

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And we are just so thankful that we can come boldly

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before your throne.

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God, as the sacrifice of Messiah,

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covers us and atones for us,

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that you may not see our sin, but you can see Yeshua,

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Jesus in us, the righteousness of God,

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in robes of righteousness, Lord,

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as we have exchanged that covenant promise

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of turning in our dirty robes for these robes of Yeshua.

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So, Lord, I thank you that we can bow down before you

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and we can bring our petitions to you, God,

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that we can ask God for you to give us these things.

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And, Lord, you even say that,

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ask of me and I will give it to you.

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Lord, when we ask for bread, you don't give us stone, Lord.

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You are true to your word,

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and it's your heart's desire to give us good things, God,

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and to give us a good life and good plans for our future.

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So, Lord, we ask that you begin now, right now,

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to guide us in all that we do.

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On this day, direct our steps.

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Lead us into paths of righteousness,

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not into the ditches, Lord,

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but may we just keep our eyes on you.

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May we understand you, Lord, in truth.

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Lord, may you pour into us your understanding, your wisdom,

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that we can walk in the knowledge of God

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and not in a man and not in what we acquire, but in you,

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and that our walk would be blessed

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and our ways would be blessed, Lord, as you lead us in it.

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So we just thank you for all of that in the name of Yeshua.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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You know, friends, there are widows as well as orphans

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all over the world who need to experience

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a tangible expression of God's love right now.

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Many have special needs that we as a company of women

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can meet together.

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So would you consider joining us with a special gift to help?

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00:54:08,000 --> 00:54:10,000
Just go to hergodstory.org

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and click on the widow and orphan tab at the top of the page.

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00:54:13,000 --> 00:54:14,000
Thank you for tuning in.

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In our show notes at hergodstory.org,

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you'll find scriptures and other information we talked about.

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Don't forget to sign up for our emails

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00:54:21,000 --> 00:54:24,000
and get a six-week devotional book on women of the Bible

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00:54:24,000 --> 00:54:25,000
that you can download for free.

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00:54:25,000 --> 00:54:28,000
Or you may want to purchase a 12-week devotional

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00:54:28,000 --> 00:54:30,000
for just $12 that we'll send you,

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00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,000
knowing that all the proceeds will go to the Widow and Orphan Fund.

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00:54:33,000 --> 00:54:37,000
We'd love to pray with you on our 24-7 prayer and text line.

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00:54:37,000 --> 00:54:42,000
Just give us a call or text anytime at 855-459-CARE

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or email us at prayer@somebodycares.org.

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00:54:45,000 --> 00:54:49,000
And now, dear friends, as King David blessed his son Solomon,

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I bless you from 1 Chronicles 22, verses 11 through 13.

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May the Lord be with you and give you success

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as you follow his direction.

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And may the Lord give you wisdom and understanding

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so you may obey the law of the Lord your God.

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May you be successful as you carefully obey the Lord.

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So be strong and courageous.

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Do not be afraid or lose heart,

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for the Lord your God is with you.