LOGOS AND RHEMA

LOGOS AND RHEMA

                “For the Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12.               

                Because of the Holy Spirit, the Bible is a living book. It is meant to speak to our spirit and it is meant to judge between that which is of the spirit and that which is of the soul (fleshly mind) in your daily life. What that means is that it helps you to know whether you are living out of your spirit or out of your flesh. Your soul, with its mind, will and emotions, is guided by the input of your five senses. It is of the flesh.

                If you are to live by the spirit, then you must have spiritual input and that spiritual input comes from the Holy Spirit. We need the Word as it is made alive by the Holy Spirit. So with that in mind, let’s define logos and rhema:

                -Logos is the Word of God as it is written on the pages of the Bible.

                -Rhema is the Word of God as it is made alive in your spirit by the Holy Spirit. Rhema is the Word made alive by divine revelation so that we are transformed and renewed by it.

                We naturally tend to deal with the logos with human logic. We see it as information to be learned, memorized, and applied to our lives.

                This is good to a point, but you can come to the end of your life, with a whole lot of facts and memory verses and good arguments while having gotten no closer to reflecting the character of Christ, or bearing the fruit of the Spirit and certainly not applying the gifts of the Spirit in your ministry to others. All you can do is to convince others logically that you have the truth.

                Bear in mind that we will be held accountable in the judgment not only for our obedience to the letter, but by what we could have done had we lived by the Spirit rather than by the flesh. We were obedient, but we didn’t bear the fruit of the Spirit or bring healing and freedom to others by the gifts of the Spirit.

                There are entire denominations that teach you never to go beyond left-brained logic. On the extreme end of left-brained logic, they pick the word apart doing away with all miracles and parsing out what they think Jesus might have actually said and kicking out everything that Jesus might not have said. But on the good end of things, they are law and doctrine oriented and obedient and faithful, but they still live by logic and not by the Spirit of God.

                The Bible however is written in pictures and parables, all of which are geared toward the right- brain and the rhema of the Spirit.

                Picture the following:

A shepherd leading sheep.  He leads them down a steep and narrow trail that opens up into a broad valley below.

Green pastures full of fresh green grass greet the sheep as they pour out into the pasture.

Being thirsty, you make a run for the river that lines the pasture. The shepherd takes you to a spot where the flowing water forms a large pool. Still waters reflect blue skies and bulrushes…red-winged blackbirds calling from the cattails… a gentle breeze adding cool comfort to the warm sun.

The shepherd refreshes your tired and travel-weary mind as He smiles at you and talks in comforting tones while checking you over for thorns or briars or ticks you might have picked up along the trail. His gentle words caress your soul. Your love and trust grows.

Picture paths of righteousness as being lighted by the glory of God. They lie ahead of you on the journey. You will stay in the glory as long as you stay with the Shepherd. You do not need to be afraid.

But parts of the journey are dangerous. The valley of the shadow of death, with its darkness and leering evil creatures threatens to destroy you.

But the Shepherd is right by your side so you are not afraid. You keep your eyes on Him.

His rod and staff comfort you because they keep the evil creatures at bay.

Picture a table laden with fruit. The evil creatures are hungry. They want to dart in and snatch your food away, but the Shepherd gives them a stern look and they cower in the shadows. They don’t want to eat your fruit nearly as much as they want to eat you. But you are safe with the Shepherd.

Now the Shepherd pours the oil of gladness and joy over your head until it runs down your cheeks. It seems to flow right down into your heart and soul bringing comfort and understanding.  Its soothing aroma and warmth fill you with unspeakable peace and joy.

                Now, picture all of these blessings following you for the rest of your life. You never need to be without the Shepherd. He will be by your side forever.

And at the end of this life you will dwell in His house, His green pastures forever. Psalm 23.

                All of Jesus’ parables are also like this. They are word pictures designed for right-brained thinking and Spirit borne understanding. Jesus pointed this out concerning the left-brained, logic thinking Pharisees and He said, hearing they do not hear and seeing they do not see. You can analyze His parables with logic and admire yourself for your cleverness, but at the end of the day, you have not been transformed by them. In order for the Word of God to be living and active, we need the Holy Spirit. We can ask Him to put us into the picture and to make these things a living reality in our lives.

                We really do need to place ourselves into these stories and ask the Holy Spirit to make them so real that we never forget the experience. It goes from being an objective lesson, to an experience that has transformed us.

                Left-brained people will look at you if we observe the Sabbath or the Feast Days, or the Ten Commandments and they will say that you have fallen into legalism, when in fact you are just staying with the Shepherd. He is leading you in paths of righteousness and anointing your head with oil. These are no longer rules to be kept for you, but the natural outflow of a life that is overflowing with the Oil of the Shepherd. He has written His ways upon your heart and you are guided by your love for Him.

                How many years have you been in Sabbath or Sunday school, hashing and rehashing the same lessons over and over again (with variations,) and yet feeling that you have made very little spiritual progress? You still battle with all of the same problems and defects. You are weary from the journey. You know left-brained thinking leads to left-brained living. The very laws that are meant to set you free have become a prison. You have become a slave to rules and requirements, but the truth has not set you free. Isn’t it time to cry out to God for something more?

                This Christian life was never designed to be lived without the indwelling and outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We presume that we received the Holy Spirit when we were baptized into the church… so why have we become exhausted? Why are there no rivers of living water flowing from our innermost being? Why have we not become trees of life to those around us? Why do we feel like we need someone to pray for us when we should be praying for them?

                It is more than merely picturing the Word as I did briefly with the 23^rd Psalm. It is a matter of purposefully receiving the Holy Spirit by pursuing, by asking, by seeking and knocking. A gift so vital and  precious as this cannot be attained by presumption.

                In the early church, after new converts were baptized the apostles laid hands on them and made sure they received the Holy Spirit in a demonstrable way. They knew when they had received the Holy Spirit because they immediately began to operate in the gifts of the Spirit. Most spoke in tongues, while others began to prophesy, but they knew.

                Friends, it might just be my opinion, but I believe we are about to head into the valley of the shadow of death. We may be only weeks away from massive changes as the evil creatures break their bonds and come rushing in among us. For this we desperately need to be really tight with the Shepherd. And by this I don’t mean with left-brained logic either. We need to be transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus. We need to be taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. We need to be filled with and baptized in the Holy Spirit. John baptized with water, but Jesus came to baptize us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Why are we afraid? Why do we resist? Why do we choose to remain powerless?

                We need to come to a place where we fear no evil. We need to be able to say with Paul that “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain. (Phil. 1:21) We need to come to a place where we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony and to love not our lives even unto death. (Rev 12:11)

                Those people in Las Vegas went to that country music concert  having no idea that they were only minutes away from eternity. How many of them were ready? How many of us will be ready when our number comes up? We need to be living in a place of confidence and closeness to the Shepherd. We need to be filled with His Spirit.

                “And do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you have been sealed for the day of redemption.” (Ephesians 4:30.) Have you been sealed by the Holy Spirit. Does your life show it in terms of fruit and gifts? Do rivers of living water flow from your innermost being? (John 7:38, 39) When the rivers flow, you will have moved beyond needing help to helping others…going on the offensive… winning souls… praying for others… setting captives free. (Isa. 58)

                The days of playing church are coming to a sudden end and you are discovering that the rituals and routines you have come to expect from church will have not been enough to prepare you for the demonic onslaught ahead. Conventional thinking and tradition are never enough. The scriptures are not an end in themselves. They point to Jesus Christ… (John 5:39) and yet many refuse to step out of the boat of logic and onto the sea of faith where those who are”in the Spirit” walk.

                You must understand that life in the Spirit is not always logical. It was not logical for Abraham and Sarah to believe God for a baby in their nineties. It was not logical to refuse to bow before Nebuchadnezzar’s statue in the face of a roaring fire. It was not logical for Moses to lift up his staff and part the Red Sea.  It is not logical that touching people can impart the gifts of the Holy Spirit or heal broken bodies. It is not logical to hear the voice of God when everyone says it is impossible. It is not logical to walk on water or to feed five thousand with five loaves and two fishes.  It is not logical to believe that we will be caught up to meet the Lord in the air. The life of faith is not a logical one, so stop trying to make it logical. When you do, you only diminish and deny the power of God.

                I don’t know when the anointing for the final harvest is ultimately going to be poured out, but I do know that we must be seeking, asking and knocking and preparing our hearts to receive it when it comes. And I believe that it is beginning to be poured out now. In many of the developing countries every miracle in the bible is being experienced on a large scale. Only in America where we still take our comfort in our possessions and money and our drugs do we not see many miracles. We have to move beyond left-brained logic and to learn how to live in the rhema, the Spirit breathed, Spirit revealed power of the Word of God as it is in those who embrace it as their lives. We need the Shepherd both beside us and inside us, because the works that He did and even greater works will we do because He has gone to the Father. (John 14:12) He has been glorified with the glory that He ever had before the world was( John 17:5,) and He has sent that glory to dwell in human hearts (John 17: 22) so that the surpassing glory might be of Him and not of ourselves.

                We are no longer interested in Holy Spirit parlor games. We are not seeking thrills and chills. We have a very real battle ahead of us and it is one that we can’t win without Him.

                There are two groups forming in the world today. One will seek security in the Shepherd, in His Holy Spirit and in His Word made flesh in us. The other will seek unity in numbers, in a global religion of compromise and they will end up worshipping the Beast and taking his mark. Which will it be for you? Time is running out. Choose wisely.

                Am I sitting on a high tower and telling you what you should do? No, I am crying out with you for all that God is calling us to be in these last days. Not one of us is better than another. Not one of us is less qualified, or more qualified than the other. We all stand in need of the same grace, the same Shepherd, the same Holy Spirit. It is all about the Shepherd… and we are the sheep of His pasture. We need to learn to recognize His voice. And it isn’t that hard. We know which voices in our head turn us toward doubt and fear, discouragement and lack of faith. We recognize the voices that pull us toward lust and greed and anger and hatred.

                Why then should it be so hard to hear the voice that calls us to holiness and righteousness, to faith and trust, to obedience and surrender? Why should it be so difficult to sort out that voice and to follow it? That voice will always agree with the Word. It will always call you to live in the Spirit. It will always warn you when you start to get off track. Why then should we pretend that we can’t hear His voice? The Spirit of God is always talking to us. We only need to be still and know.

                The only time we can’t hear His voice is when we don’t want to go in the way that He is leading. Then we start tapping our hearing aids and claiming static. No, we know His voice alright and it is calling us to get out of the boat and to walk with Jesus in the realm of faith. He is calling us out of our comfort zone, to witness to others… to pray for others… to visit the afflicted and give bread to the hungry…the widows and orphans.

                We know His voice and we know what to do. And I suspect that when we do what He has called us to do, He will add His power to it and we will do the works of Christ in this world. We are entering that period of time when this will happen. Get ready for it… pray for it… in Yeshua’s name.