worship | Missing Pieces

“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” (2 Timothy 1:7).

The part of this Scripture I want to focus on today is that God has given us a sound mind. He is not a God who wants us to suffer in mind or body, so He has created us with the tools to repair ourselves. It is well-known that certain types of creatures can regenerate parts of their bodies when they are wounded: deer grow new antlers, lizards grow new legs and tails, starfish grow new arms, and worms can grow entire new bodies. While it is true that humans cannot grow new arms or legs (except by the miraculous power of the Holy Spirit), we can regenerate our minds. Let me explain what I mean.

Believers in Yeshua understand the concept of renewing our minds (Rom 12:2) but that seems like a fairly obscure process to most of us, and it is hard to explain to someone how they can go about renewing their minds so they can line up with YHVH’s perfect will. However, when we look at the deeper meaning of the Hebrew word for renewal in this verse (hitchadshut), we see that it actually means regeneration, which is the same word used to describe creatures that grow new body parts. Over the last 30 years, brain research has greatly increased our understanding of how the brain functions physically, but it has also helped scientists’ understanding of the forces outside the physical brain (referred to as quantum mechanics) that trigger the conscious thought processes within the brain.

From a spiritual and Biblical perspective, we would call these external forces the mind or soul, as the mind is what enables our thoughts to be world-centered, self-centered or God-centered. The mind/soul encompasses the intellect, free will, and emotions. From God’s word, we know that we have power over our mind, to be able to renew it to be more God-centered, or to take our thoughts captive to the obedience of Messiah Yeshua (2 Cor 10:5). New scientific findings indicate that when we are actively thinking in our minds, we are actually changing our DNA, switching genes on and off, and causing cells to function differently. These actions do not happen merely by physical functions of the brain – they must be enabled by the mind, or conscious thought processes (see Dr. Caroline Leaf’s “Switch on Your Brain” study for more details on this research: https://drleaf.com/store/switch-on-your-brain/).

Psychologists and therapists have known for many years that the way we think affects our mental, physical, and emotional health. You may be familiar with a famous teaching about the power of our thoughts: “The Power of Positive Thinking” by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale. James 1:21 tells us (paraphrased) that if we lay aside all sinfulness in our lives and embrace God’s implanted word, this will “…save our souls”. Once again, though, we have a concept for renewing our souls which is easy to discuss but hard to implement in our lives.

So how do we go about regenerating our minds to bring healing and wholeness to our bodies and souls? The Holy Spirit is our helper and healer and leads us into all of YHVH’s truth and wisdom. So how do we tap into the Holy Spirit’s healing and restoring power? We can only learn the Holy Spirit’s wisdom and truth and experience His healing power if we spend time with Him! It says in James 1:27 that true worship is keeping yourself unspotted by the world. In order to resist the wiles of the devil and the temptations of the world, we must separate ourselves from the world – Isa 52:11 and II Cor 6:17-18: “Therefore go out from their midst, and be separate from them, says the LORD [YHVH], and touch no unclean thing; then I will welcome you, and I will be a father to you…”.

We understand from these Scriptures and others that true worship means setting yourself apart from the world and spending time with the Holy Spirit, praying and meditating on YHVH’s word. You do not have to be in a corporate sanctuary to “do worship”, and you do not have to be alone in your closet. You can be worshipping everywhere you go. What we really need to do is to renew our minds so that we live in a constant state of worship, meaning that we keep YHVH’s presence with us wherever we are, listening to His guidance and constantly interacting with Him through internal dialogue. This will keep our minds stayed on Him, because we are trusting in Him (Isa 26:3). And when we keep our minds focused on Him, then we will be sending positive impulses into all the organs and cells of our body, healing us of all infirmities, anxieties and fears (2 Timothy 1:7).

In our own spiritual journey, the Holy Spirit has led Peter and me to various congregations and ministries. Each new experience taught us something about living and functioning as members of the kingdom of YHVH. Although we fellowship with various groups and congregations, we continue our search for the one congregation where we are encouraged to put all the newly-acquired pieces together.

A brief summary of our journey may help to paint this picture more clearly. At one congregation, we learned to love each other unconditionally. However, the Spirit moved us on to another congregation to learn our Hebrew roots so that we might gain a more accurate knowledge of the history of our faith and acquire a better lens through which to understand both Old and New Testaments. Once again the Spirit moved us on to various ministries and congregations in order to understand better how we should be functioning in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. A separate ministry supplied us with a more mature understanding of our spiritual enemies and how to be delivered from bondage to the enemy. Interaction with various other ministries confirmed the message I had received from Father that we were to call Him by His name. While we are grateful for these congregations and ministries, we wonder why each group seems to have part of the truth, but not all of the truth. After meditating on Acts chapters 2 through 8, I began to realize just how fragmented the Bride of Messiah has become over the centuries.

The first eight chapters of the Book of Acts paints a very different picture of the living functioning Bride of Messiah. Yeshua’s followers lived together in close proximity to one another sharing all their belongings. As a unit they prayed, praised and worshipped, studied, healed, preached, taught, learned, and shared all their possessions (Acts 2:42-47). Today, we and many others must search from place to place to acquire what we need to be mature contributers to Yeshua’s Bride.

When did the fragmenting start? Right away, since the majority of Jewish leaders and many of their followers rejected Yeshua as their Messiah. Yeshua’s followers went to the Temple as YHVH commanded in the Torah, but they had to go outside the Temple parameters in order to learn about Yeshua. Although not perfect, the first generation of Yeshua’s followers provided a more complete picture of what the Bride should be. As time went on the Bride became further fragmented as the good news spread and Yeshua’s followers were scattered over several nations. Distance, persecution, poverty and other trials helped to foster misunderstanding, suspicion, and outright abuse or neglect of each other, especially dividing Jews from non-Jews. Constantine’s efforts to unite his massive empire mingled in pagan practices and beliefs, and at the same time sought to eliminate all ties to Jewish or Hebrew roots. Over time empty manmade rites and rituals increasingly replaced true relationship with YHVH.

At this time, YHVH seems to be restoring the Bride, perfecting her in anticipation of Yeshua’s return. Several congregations that we have met with locally are seeking to restore the missing pieces in their groups. Three Messianic congregations in India have demonstrated for us the most complete example thus far of how the Bride should function. These congregations function according to their Hebrew roots, actively preach and teach the good news of the Kingdom of YHVH, operate daily in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and call the Father by name. They do so in the midst of daily trials and persecution. What about each of us? How are we participating in YHVH”s work to restore the fragmented Bride?