The following is an excerpt from Jesus' View of His Father: A Perspective for the Thinking Christian by William Livingston.  It is a great introduction to the concept of righteousness.

Session 10

Uncovering the Mystery of the Righteousness of Jesus

March 8, 2015

               Here we come now into delving into why Christianity has been so compromised that the Lord’s expectations for them remain unexpressed when He said that greater things would we do than He has done. The reasons we have been compromised are two fold and they can be summed up by addressing something brought into the early church by the Gentile Mission and by something entirely eliminated by them: both that which they brought in and that which they have taken out completely transformed the religion of Jesus and the early church.  It is the religion which you have inherited.  They took out righteousness and they brought in death, and Jesus’ view of His Father was minimized out of any definition of salvation except to say in the end we get to live with God because of Jesus.  Knowing Jesus’ Father in this life takes second place to knowing about Jesus.

               Before I get into explaining these two things, I want first to give you a perspective for that which is really happening in these last two sessions of this series; and that could be said for the session on Jesus’ Creatorship as well.  In these next two sessions I am attempting to bring information that has the potential to empower Christians in a depth and on a level that can result in their achieving those expectations.  I come here today authorized by the Spirit of God and the Council of the Community to disclose information not in the public mind since the days of the early church.  I feel compelled by the Spirit to disclose to you at this time specific understanding of how great healings and miracles were done by those of the sect of the Nazarenes.  And of course they were also called Essenes.  They were known as healers.  Jesus was the premier healer among them.  I am certain the Lord fully intends His people, here in our day, to follow His example and those of the early church, to love and understand spiritual realities on a level that enables them to bring sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, and to raise the dead.  Never has there been a greater need.  Never in history has mankind faced such over powering forces that result in the need for physical and spiritual healing. 

               Let me say right here that what you will be hearing will not by mystical.  It won’t be New Age and it will not feel like far eastern religions.  It will be very practical and Bible based.  It will be expressing an entirely unknown depth for the Christian world in terms of a relationship with Christ and His creation.  I will be getting right down to the bare bones of being kindred to Jesus and His Father.

               Perhaps after hearing all of this there will be few who will be determined enough to put the kind of effort into it to actually accomplish it; but the prospect that there may be some makes my effort today worthwhile.  I will be making public today, for the first time, the Essene view in these matters.  And I will be illustrating the Nazarene perspective of the world.  I hope the Lord has led me to know just how to do it so that people, with study and the witness of His Spirit, can come to understand those matters in a way that builds faith and empowerment.

               Christians need to develop a culture, an expression of true religion, and a way of life that reflects the Creatorship of Jesus; and this in the framework of His definition of salvation - namely knowing His Father, and I might say, confronting the reality of His Father.  What would a Christian expression of Jesus’ Creatorship be like in practice and in everyday living?  The early church, under the ministry of Jesus, building upon the prophets who worshiped the One True God, developed a unique expression of religion, a culture, a language, and a way of life that is founded on the Creatorship of Jesus with always having His Father in sight. So how, now in our day, do Christians express the power of Christianity?  Changing peoples’ lives and bringing rebirth is vital.  Does God expect His people to triumph over the evils of this world to the extent that they can give His world back to Him?  Are Christians called upon to do more in concert with the angels of heaven?  Does our dear Lord need help with healing His people who are now in the most desperate circumstances?  What does the Lord expect of His people?  Savior is a secondary role for Jesus; first He had to create you.  Salvation must be built on His Creatorship. 

               So now we come to the two things that have compromised Christian spiritual power.  The first one entails that which the Gentile Mission brought into the church.  They established death to be the central pathway to salvation and eternal life.  Does saying that seem startling to any of you?  The plan of salvation for the Gentile Mission is centered on death.  I know that death is a dreary topic but I must speak of it just a bit more to finally lay it to rest.  Recently, archaeologists uncovered a Minoan site in the Mediterranean where a priest sacrificed a person and a bowl of blood was being taken to be placed at the feet of an idol in an attempt to stop an earthquake, but the building fell down on them preserving the whole scene.  That is a culture whose remnants and influence remain right in the midst of the lands of the Gentile Mission. 

               Let me emphatically assure you that the church in Christ’s day did not believe that death was the central force which brought eternal life.  By bringing it into the church, the Gentiles stripped the church of its power and its legitimacy before God.  That is why I have hammered on the topic of blood all through this series.  In doing so, I have just added my voice to the voices of the prophets and Jesus and to the voices of the early church.  Now you do not have to consciously think of death to be disempowered.  The whole environment of death-thinking is sufficient to do it.  A person who worships death simply cannot raise the dead back to life.  Death thinking inhibits a person from experiencing the deeper and more profound aspects of being born again.  You will see that righteousness is the pathway to those depths of holiness and empowerment.

               So Christians should be very careful how they associate death with Jesus. Jesus said I am the living bread. He says I can give the living water. He says I am the truth the way and the life.  I come that you might have life and have it more abundantly.  I am talking about life here. I have come down from heaven to give life to the universe. He says if you believe not ye shall not see life. He says if you know my Father you have passed from death to life already. John says of Him, in Him is life and the life is the light of men. Christ spoke a lot about life. Jesus said let the dead bury the dead. He said in Proverbs 8:35-36, this reference is attributing this saying to Christ, “He who finds me finds life. He who hates me loves death.” That is what it says in Proverbs. Have you been taught to love His death? 

            Jesus did not use the words “die” or “death” in relation to Himself even one time in the Bible.  If He would have considered that His death would be dying for our sins, wouldn’t one think He would have used those words?  Caretakers of the Biblical record among those of the Gentile Mission tried to promote the concept of His death as being that which would bring salvation.  They could have chosen to do the same with His life.  An example of this is found in John 12:32-33, “And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. (This next verse is not Jesus’ words.) This he said, signifying what death he should die.”  They are saying this to indicate that it was His death that would draw all men unto Him.  But the Greek word “hoop-sos” is the word here translated as “lifted up.”  It means to be exalted.  It is Greek # 5312 and it comes from #5311, “hoop-so-o,” which means to dignify someone.  No one is exalted or dignified by experiencing capital punishment.  The ascension of Jesus is what is being spoken of here.  That is really what will draw all men to Him.  Jesus spoke of His ascension in John 6:62 clearly indicating His anticipation of it.  There is no greater expression of His life than His ascension.

               And so the reason I bring this up is because a part of why Christianity has neglected the Creatorship of Christ, or not been able to develop it, is because of their view of death and how they prioritize it in their thinking of Him. Christ’s ministry was centered on life but the majority of Christians center on His death.  Hundreds of millions worship His death. Some of us here were recently invited to attend a worldwide celebration of the death of Jesus on what is called Good Friday. They call it Good Friday. I call it Bad Friday because they killed my Lovely One on that day. Resurrection day should be called Good Monday because on it He lived - had life again. The power of Christianity comes from centering on His life here and now. Churches should have round stones like the door of His tomb that was rolled away on top of them instead of a Roman gallows. He lives. He gives life. He is life itself for the universe. He restores my soul back to life when a part of me is dead. He lives. Christ overcame death long before the resurrection. Otherwise how could He meet Moses and Elijah on the mount of transfiguration? How would they have gotten there unless they were first resurrected by Him?  How can He say God is the God of the living and not the dead, in relation to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob? He overcame death before the world was created, otherwise how was Enoch translated into heaven without death?  See Hebrews 11:5.  

               So there are reasons why Christianity hasn’t developed the Creatorship of Jesus. And the place of death in their view of Him is one of them. It is not because Christians are inept. It is not because they just don’t get it. It is because there has been a very sophisticated and a very highly developed force against the truth, against Jesus, against righteousness, against the people of the Lord experiencing the abundant gift of life which He has made available. All this has come by the cunning powers of darkness and death.

               The adversary has been enabled to rob the Lord’s people of their endowment in the power of Godliness. Death does not beget life. Death begets death. Life begets life. People must be conditioned to be dead inside in order for them to kill their fellow men in war. The dead kill and bring death. The living love and bring life. So be careful how you associate death with Christ. The meaning of the death of Jesus is vastly overshadowed by the meaning of His life. His death did not enable Him to be the Creator. It was His life that generated the universe. It is too easy to focus on His death and lose sight of the vastness of the meaning of His life and the consequence of your very existence that sprang out of His life.

               Now I want to talk about the second thing that has contributed to Christianity losing its power by not developing the Creatorship of Christ. First of all, and I am going to give you some different things here, almost everyone associates the “atonement” with death.  And it is surprising that the word “atonement” doesn’t appear in the New Testament. Isn’t that amazing? Some Bible versions have it once in Romans 5:11 and that reference is Strong’s #2644 in the Greek, it means to reconcile. It doesn’t have anything to do with the real meaning of the word “atonement.”  In this Romans verse it was mistranslated, it should have been to reconcile. The word “atonement” by its very definition in the Hebrew language, or Aramaic which Jesus spoke, has nothing to do with death.  It has everything to do with life. When you look up the word “atonement” it is number #3722 in your Strong’s, under the Hebrew dictionary, the word “kaf-ar” means literally to cover with bitumen.  Isn’t that shocking, to cover with bitumen? Bitumen is a waterproofing used on cisterns and water channels. It is a pitch-like substance. The reason I am telling you this again isbecause as we go through this and talk about why Christianity hasn’t developed the Creatorship of Christ, this word “atonement” and the typical Christian idea of atonement is central.

               In the holy land, they had cisterns because water was hard to go get and carry. And cisterns made water available at your home. And they, most of the time, carved them out of the rock that often had fissures and cracks. And they plastered the inside of them to prevent leaks. And sometimes it was sandstone or porous material so they had to cover the interior of their water cisterns with bitumen. And they had to have an atoner, one who did it as a trade, to come periodically. And he had to cause their cisterns to hold water. So the atonement actually means to waterproof something.

               So where did this concept of atonement being associated with death come from? It comes directly from the Old Testament, Leviticus 17:11.  This scripture catapulted the atonement being blood into the New Testament with those of the Gentile Mission, with no validity whatsoever.  And it has no valid association with Jesus’s death. I am going to read it. This is part of the Babylonian law that proceeded from Aaron the idol maker’s time. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls. For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” That verse put the idea of the atonement into the category of death and blood.  It is purely a Babylonian concept to cover your spirit with blood.  Could blood really waterproof your soul?  If it was supposed to apply to Christ, why does the word not appear in the New Testament? And why did Jesus not ever even allude to it being blood if it was central to His mission?

               Actually He did clearly speak of it with its real definition of being to cause one to hold the living water. Remember He said in John 4:14, “But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into the everlasting life.” When this Old Testament concept was brought into the New Testament theology, something or somebody had to die and spill blood for atonement for their souls. But the real meaning actually is to prepare your life and soul to hold the living water. And the Son of God has as His central mission of salvation to reprove you and forgive you and bring into you His Spirit for you to feel forgiven when you repent, which is the condition that will allow you to hold the living water, or to spiritually cover you with bitumen. And this new life is being born again, you are a changed person and you will never thirst again and be desperate to feel His love and forgiveness. I personally don’t long for what the living water feels because by Him it is always with me.

               And so remember this when we continue here today, that the atonement is talking about Jesus’s ability to spiritually condition your life through reproval, repentance and forgiveness, so that you can hold in your soul the refreshing, restoring, reviving wonder of utterly pure, cool Living Water.  Concepts of death and blood are the first things that began to dilute the Christian spiritual power that comes from living the Creatorship of Christ. This idea has intruded upon the Lord’s people springing forth out of the Gentile Mission’s attempt to make the gospel compatible with those who had a long history of worshipping pagan gods that required death.

               The second concept that rendered Christianity powerless to minister, like Jesus did in His healing ministry and of raising the dead, probably began during the time of the Maccabees and was carried over into Christianity. The temple religion changed the definition of righteousness. Righteousness is going to be my topic for today.  Never have you heard something so central to your empowerment.  Never will you consider anything so capable of endowing you as what I am going to teach and describe to you today.  Those in the temple religion changed the definition of righteousness to be keeping the Levitical law. When you look it up in the dictionary this definition still stands, any I have found anyway. The one that I looked up says the definition of righteousness is “to act in accordance with divine or moral law.” But when you look up righteousness in the Hebrew part of Strong’s which represents biblical Hebrew, #6663 the word “zedek” means to be right. That’s it, to be right, nothing to do with keeping the law.

               So there are these parallel perspectives in your Bible that keep showing up that we have discovered, all the way through this series. Righteousness is either 1) to act in concert with divine or moral law or 2) righteousness is a feeling expressing a right relationship with the life that Creator Jesus put into all things. When you look up #6663, you will also find that “zedek” also means to cleanse or clear yourself, to turn to righteousness, and to do that which is altogether just.  The idea or concept of righteousness originated long before the concept of law arose in Babylon. The Lord told Noah that he was righteous in Genesis 7:1 long before any concept of law. In Matthew 23:35, the Lord Himself called Abel, Adam and Eve’s son, righteous. What Pharisee would claim any of their law originated with our first parents? With righteousness diminished and done away with, Jesus’ Creatorship is lost to Christianity.  Without righteousness being to be right in all your relationships, a major awareness of religious expression was denied to the Lord’s people. 

               Let me say a few words to help you understand how such a powerful concept as righteousness could be lost to Christianity.  The Hebrews didn’t, and in fact couldn’t, write about it in any other way than they did in your Bible because righteousness was embedded in their language and old culture to the extent that to them it was obvious that literally everything in their language and culture was expressing it in spite of foreign influences. They could not conceive that there was anything else.  Righteousness was so obvious to them and such an overarching part of their lives that they could not grasp that any person would not be fully aware of it.

               Ok let’s now talk about how to retrieve it. How do you gain an understanding of righteousness?  What is the Biblical evidence to show us what it really is? What was Jesus’s definition of it, and that of the early church and the old Hebrew culture? What did they have for a definition? First of all, Jesus’s central quality of His personality throughout the Scriptures, in prophecy, everywhere was His righteousness. Surely if righteousness was keeping the law and Christ fulfilled the prophecies proclaiming Him righteous, He and the Pharisees would have had the same definition in common.  They would have embraced Him not killed Him. The Pharisees main goal in life was to attain perfect righteousness in keeping the Levitical law. Christ’s main goal in life was to help us attain perfect righteousness in our right relationships of love for His creation and for all people, and especially with His Father. That is the correct definition.  That phrase is used over and over in the New International Bible Dictionary under the word “righteousness.”  They both were very intent to obtain two different definitions of righteousness.  This is the war of the Torahs again. Remember Stephen in Acts 7, “with the coming of the just one.” Here look up the word “just” in your Greek; it will be #1342, it means righteousness. And in the Hebrew #6662, it means the same thing – to be righteous.  So Stephen was really saying to the Sanhedrin “with the coming of the righteous one.” I think the Sanhedrin was very aware of the two different definitions and were further enraged by this comment because their very issue with Jesus was that He was not keeping the law, especially the law of the imposed Torah.

               Here is some evidence supporting the real definition. In Isaiah 53:11, Jesus is called “the righteous servant.” I’m telling you these things to establish for you the idea that Jesus’ central virtue is righteousness.  In Hebrews 7, Jesus is a high priest after the order of Melchizedek. In the word Mel-chiz-zedek, “zedek” is righteousness. Melchizedek means that which rules over me is righteousness or my king is righteousness. So Jesus’s priesthood is defined by righteousness.  The ultimate holy expression of priesthood is defined by righteousness.   In Isaiah 61:3, the people of Messiah are called trees of righteousness. Ok, how do you get trees to keep the law? In Isaiah 11:5, Jesus is clothed in righteousness. Are you clothed by keeping the Levitical law? In I John 3:10, “whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God.”  This statement demonstrates that righteousness was central to the early church’s concept of salvation. Why would Jesus exhort people to be righteous if He knew He would be righteous for them, as it is indicated in Romans 4:5-6 and Philippians 3:9?

               In the Gospel of John 16:8-10, Christ says He will “reprove the world of righteousness, because they see me no more.” None of those things have to do with keeping the Levitical law.  This is a vital verse to understanding His definition of righteousness. He is saying He will reprove them for the kind of relationship they have with Him when He is gone. It is one thing for you to have a right relationship with Him when He is present, but another when He cannot be seen and one has to rely completely on His Spirit for that relationship with Him.

               “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they shall be filled.” How do you hunger and thirst after keeping the law? And what would you be filled with? I hunger and thirst after a right relationship with the Spirit of life that the Lord put into all things and I am filled with His Spirit. Hungering and thirsting is not just a craving. It is what you have to do to live. And so do you have to keep the Levitical law to live? I am not saying we do not have to keep any law. Here in community, keeping the law of virtue is vital for us to maintain harmony together. Our principle law is found in the Bible and in the Community Rule written by the early church.  But I am saying that it is not righteousness. Does your gift of life depend on keeping a law or does it depend on your close walk with The Man, Jesus, the Creator, the Lovely One of God?  To have life more abundantly depends on you having the right relationship with your Creator and being right with the spirits of life that Jesus put into all things as He said, I came down from heaven to give life to the universe. Don’t we all hunger and thirst after that? How does one get clothed with keeping the Levitical law?

               On the other hand, when you are wrapped up in, and surrounded with the right relationships with the Lord and His people and His creation, you could easily say you are clothed with righteousness spiritually and physically. I will speak of this more in a moment.  Here is something that would be good for you to understand. According to the way righteousness is expressed in Scripture, both in the Old Testament and the New, it becomes clear that the Lord’s view of righteousness is to have a right relationship: first, with His Father and with Him, and second, with your neighbor and all creation.

               Enter “the other guy.” As the leadership of the Gentile Mission became more mature in their ability to appeal to the Gentiles, they did not of course embrace Jesus’ definition of righteousness being to be right in all of your relationships, and they also abandoned its meaning to be keeping the law of virtue because, as you all well know, they openly required people to do away with the law. So there was no righteousness under either definition in the Gentile Mission.

               This matter of the law became very complicated by the time it was dealt with by the Gentile Mission.  Jesus did not teach the early church to do away with the law of virtue and love, but the law for those in the Gentile Mission was not the Law of Moses, it was the law of Aaron that sprang out of Babylon.  So the law of Aaron should have been done away with long before Jesus’ ministry or the Gentile Mission.  Jesus spoke dismissively of the law of Aaron.  Christians can rightly sense that they shouldn’t be trying to keep the Levitical law from their Bible’s Old Testament.  And while the Law of Moses can largely be found interspersed in the Old Testament and also in the New, it is difficult to separate the two.  On top of this, Gentiles felt that they had no business keeping any “Jewish law.”  Separating the Law of Moses (law of virtue) from the law of Aaron in your Bible is a difficult undertaking.  Jesus knew this, so He remedied it for us.  He quoted the shema, or that is the First and Second Commandments found in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 and He said that, “on this hang all the law and the prophets.”  So by keeping the First and Second Commandments of love and virtue, you are founded on the very basics of the law of love and you are firmly worshiping the One True God of the prophets.  With this we find it easier to separate out the two laws. 

               And as if all this were not enough, they declared and promoted openly that no one needed to be righteous.  Jesus would be righteous for you. And how one could lay claim to the righteousness He had in your behalf was to believe in His blood which was called an atonement. So the whole idea of righteousness became so convoluted that the entire central characteristic of the personality and ministry of the Lord was lost to Christianity. And in this way, “the other guy” stripped the church of its power.  Just what you would expect him to do and he has done it right under their noses, because the Scriptures are utterly full of information otherwise about righteousness. It is out of a deep sense of love for the people of the Lord that I have embarked on telling you these things.

               Then to recap a bit and to continue on: let me ask once again, how does a tree keep the law if the righteous are called trees of righteousness? What does not seeing Jesus have to do with not keeping the law? And how will the skies pour down keeping the law as it say in Isaiah 45:8? So throughout your scriptures the real definition runs counter to what the Pharisees did with their compromising the concept of righteousness.

               Now having said all this, the definition of having the right relationship with the life that Jesus put into all things emerges. And this is completely obscure to Christianity. When I begin to uncover this to you, you are going to be surprised, because now I am going to show you some nuts and bolts of the evidence for it in your Bible. So your Bible is yet your greatest treasure because in it is the truth about righteousness from cover to cover. In fact the Bible is so filled with the correct definition of righteousness that the powers that sought to destroy it could not remove it. They would have had to do away with the entire Bible in order to remove it, which, of course, for many that has been accomplished.

               So this concerted effort has been very effective because there are many miracles and great healings and such expressions of spiritual power that are gone in Christianity because the power that produces them through Christ in righteousness is gone in the Christian experience. They don’t raise the dead anymore; they don’t heal the blind and the deaf. With the loss of righteousness, Christianity has been effectively neutralized - sidelined. Think of what an unstoppable surge would occur in the religion of Jesus, in view of the severe world need, if such powers of love, forgiveness and healing were to be expressed today in the way He expected us to do it. And don’t be influenced that it is foolhardy to think such power could be in place today.

               Now one of the things that added to this loss is sometimes some authors in the New Testament, who were unfamiliar with Jesus’ example and teachings, started ideas that fought against righteousness. In Romans in the first three chapters, there is lengthy discussion about righteousness. And one of the things it says is “sin cometh by the law for where there is no law there is no sin.” If there isn’t someone to say it is wrong, it’s not wrong. So the law to author of Romans is the source of evil and sin. There are other places that talk about the same thing. There is one place that says “that by one comes the free gift to all.” That is of course what I alluded to earlier about how Christ’s righteousness is passed on to all believers of His blood so no one any longer needs to be righteous. What they are saying is only Jesus has to be righteous.

               So just what do you find in the Bible when you look, and you really study, and you find out about the righteousness of Jesus and how it was expressed by Him? I am going to talk to you about this and this is very exciting to me. This is one of the biggest blessings that I can ever share with you. So to help you understand where we are going to go here, I want to help you with some knowledge of the Hebrew language. The Hebrew language is a righteous language. What I mean by that is the Hebrew language defines the feelings that are the essence of the spirit of life that Jesus put into things when He gave them life as their Creator. The language in many cases actually defines the feeling of that life, making it possible for you to consciously have the right relationship with it.

               In ancient times, maybe not as ancient as some would like to think, the Hebrew language, which I think reflects the original human language, had a way of expressing things that would be very shocking to you. Their word for strong is “ayil.”  It also means oak tree. In the ancient times they would look to describe someone and say, “my, he is certainly oak.  He has the right relationship with an oak tree.” They could have said that because that was a word for strong.

               So the Hebrew language, when you look far back, has righteousness deeply embedded in it and, because of that, it is also in the Hebrew culture. And I think that Jesus was born a Hebrew for that reason, He is the prince of righteousness. I don’t think He was born a Hebrew because God had racial preference for them. I think He had chosen them because they had a connection and a culture and a language that expressed a right relationship with Him, and a connection that was righteousness in its purest expression. Remember righteousness is to be right in all your relationships.

               So now this is a really fun exercise for me. It may be a little bit of a surprise for many of you. I am going to open up to you the righteousness of Jesus as specifically expressed in your Bible; just a little glimpse of what He did and what His life was like. I am limited by time here but you can study this out for yourselves and add to this. I could spend a lot of time giving you examples if I had it but I will do what I can. So here we go. Jesus said I am the living bread come down from heaven. I am the bread of life. Where would one expect the living bread to be born? In Bethlehem. What does Bethlehem mean? It is Hebrew # 1035 and it means the house of bread.  He had a right relationship with the place He was born. The word bread is “lechem.” It is #3899, bread, which comes from #3898, and it means to overcome and to prevail and to consume. It even has meaning to fight. All these meanings are precisely what this little baby Bread of Life, was born to do: to consume human sin and to overcome it and prevail with salvation. His mission in life was expressed by the feelings of the town He was born in. It was the right relationship. Isn’t that amazing? There is more.

               There was a good Christian gentleman named Farrar who was a scholar of the Bible and who wrote in the 1800s. In the late 1870s and in the early 1880s, he went to the holy land. And at the time he went there, there were no cars or roads, only foot paths in Israel. And he spent three and a half years retracing and duplicating what he saw to be Christ’s travels in His ministry as found in the Bible. He actually traveled in the pattern stated in the Bible as best he could. He found that Nain was 20 miles away from Jerusalem. And Christ got up in the morning and walked from Jerusalem to Nain and arrived just before noon. That shows that Jesus was a great walker - 20 miles before noon. Farrar’s information is valuable just for things like that. He wrote a book called The Life of Christ. So this man Farrar did this. I would recommend it for good reading. It is still available. Some of the things he found were typically very informative.  He really liked to go to the inns because Christ’s parents went to an inn and found no room there.  So he spends a lot of time describing inns, and he found that typically most often the manger was an old kneading trough that they had worn out kneading bread. Then they would use it as a feeding trough or manger. It was a hollowed out wooden piece. So was the Bread of Life born in the house of bread and laid in a kneading trough?

               Now on with our information.  Was the Lamb of God clothed with a wool blanket?  There is a word for sheep -  #7353, “rachael,” which is the name of Jacob’s wife, when you go back to the Paleo-Hebrew, it means to have authority to divide good from evil. Did the little Lamb of God have authority to divide good from evil? Wouldn’t it have been fitting for the Lamb of God to wear wool? Or did they swaddle the One who had the living water to give in linen? The word for linen is “miqveh,” - #4723, and it means a pool of cleansing water. Was this all an accident or was He clothed in righteousness? Clothed in righteousness can be wearing garments that you select for their definition of some specific spirit of life that Jesus the Creator put into that which you want to cloth you.  Essenes, or those called the Nazarenes, wore linen for this reason.

               Jesus fed the 5000 multiplying loafs and fishes in a place called Genesereth. It was called Galilee by the Greeks, which for them simply means a circular road - no meaning in Greek with righteousness. But in Hebrew it is called Genesereth, which means the garden of plenty according to Farrar in his book on the life of Christ written in 1879.  Did Jesus have the right relationship with where He fed the 5000? What a place to multiply the loaves and fishes! Now multiplying loaves and fishes was also part of the element of righteousness because fishes, #1709, means to be prolific and to multiply greatly and He multiplied them greatly indeed. And He used loaves and fishes three times. He used them to feed the 4000 and the 5000, and He used it again after His resurrection on the sea shore. And again, the bread is to overcome and prevail.  So when He multiplied loaves and fishes, to be right with that element was to help these people to multiply and be prolific in their ability to know God and to overcome and prevail in their struggles to stand clean before the Lord – bread and fish.

               Ok, now He went to Nain.  This story is in Luke 7:11. In the account that Farrar relates in his book, as you approach the city you have to climb up a hill on a rocky path. The city is on top, so one emerges rather suddenly from the path coming up into the town at the gate.  Jesus got up on top just as a procession of a funeral was going by. And Jesus walked out and stood in front of them and He held out His hand and He touched the bier, which is very bold because anybody who touches the dead is unclean, especially for Essenes. It is also unthinkable to interfere in this way with a funeral. Jesus had compassion on the mother and He raised the young man from the dead. And his widowed mother was following along behind sobbing because it was her only son and support. And the Lord raised him from the dead and sent him safely home to dwell with his mother. The word “Nain,” #4999 in your Strong’s, means to dwell happily at home. Did Jesus fulfill the meaning of every town He had association with? How would one, who does not know about being right, deal with these extraordinary convergences between meaning and behavior? Are you starting to get it? This is not mysticism.  Was Jesus right in His relationship with the city of Nain or was it just by chance that He arrived at that perfect moment and enacted meaning of the spiritual life that gave the city its’ name?

               One thing is certain; Jesus’ rightness with the spirit of life in His environment was critical to His spiritual power and was central to the lad being raised from the dead. Do you think I am crazy? Is your first impression that you could never be right in the same sense in your lives? Let’s keep going. There was not any detail too small for Christ to be right with the spirit of life in something in creation. Matthew 9:20 says that a woman touched the hem of His garment to be healed. What did He say? He said who touched me? His disciples thought that was a strange thing to say when He was in the press of the crowd. And He said, “I perceive virtue has gone forth out of me.” Look up the word “hem” - #7757 - and you get skirt.  Look up skirt in the English and you find #3671. You follow that word to the root word #3670 “carath,” which mean to go forth out of, to withdraw.  He was in harmony; He was right with even the hem of His garment. Nothing was too small. He is the Prince of righteousness. He is my Hero.

               He raised Lazarus from the dead. The word “Lazarus,” #499 in Hebrew, means God is my helper. Jesus said to his friend Lazarus, I will help you; “come forth.”  In Mark 2:1-4, they let a man down on ropes from the roof into the midst of the house to be healed. I always thought when I was a little lad that they had to make a hole in the roof. It was so crowded they couldn’t get in, so they had to break up the roof, and I was thinking how did they do that without dropping stuff on those below? Their roofs were covered with dirt. Jesus is in there trying to talk. They are letting this guy down from the roof. The word “roof” is #1342, “gah-ah.” What did He say to the guy? “Raise up, take up thy bed and walk.” Gah-ah means to be raised up. He was aware of the spirit of life even with the roof that brought Him a man desperate to be healed by those who loved him so much that they broke up the roof of one of their neighbors. I’m sure they had to go back and repair it later.  The people that participated and saw these things all knew that the old definition of righteousness was being presented to them anew. The people of the early church, the Essenes, were completely aware of the spiritual power that comes from righteousness and they lived it every day in both their religion and their Hebrew culture.  They had the same struggles as you.  They had to find a way to create and maintain a way of life separate from the evils of their world.

               Now can you see why those of the early church were so alarmed and dismayed when the Pharisees changed the definition and more especially when those of the Gentile Mission completely took it out of church belief? They saw it as disastrous and a frightful affront to Jesus’ entire mission. And many of them lamented these diversions from the truth. Here again comes into play problems those engaged in the Gentile Mission were confronted with.  The Gentiles had no concept of their God placing a living Spirit of love in their natural environment, one that was identifiable and could be interacted with.  Their ideas of creation simply did not include such imagery. They only interacted religiously with those spirits of death in the occult.  And I think those of the early church who were scattered, when they heard reports of the Christians being eaten by lions in Rome, would have attributed it to the loss of spiritual power that resulted from doing away completely with righteousness. And the persecuted Christians thought why can’t God protect us?

               Do not be fooled; a major rift between Jesus and the Pharisees was the difference in their definition of righteousness. They wanted to kill Christ for healing on the Sabbath. That can only mean that for them keeping the Levitical law is more important than being right with the spirit of life that is put into creation to heal and bring life and happiness, which is a very sad narrative. One thing that tells you that the definition of righteousness is not keeping the Levitical law is what Christ said, “If your righteousness does not exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.” The Pharisees were absolutely fanatic about keeping the Levitical law. They were fearfully urgent to uphold and sustain their view of righteousness in light of the public’s acceptance of the dynamic nature of Christ’s ministry. It was increasingly hard for them to counter it in public with living examples extolling the ancient righteousness. And the threat was magnified by support written in the prophets, especially in David’s writings.

               Now I want to tell you a fantastic story. It illustrates that not only Jesus knew what He was doing by being right with the life in all things, but also that the multitudes of people were keenly aware of what was going on with righteous Jesus. It was, after all, the Hebrew culture, even if much of it had been lost to Hellenization. I am going to read you six verses from Matthew 21:6-11.  This is the account of His entry into Jerusalem. This is a real good illustration of the righteous use of element. When I speak about use of element, I am talking about being right by using the material substance in creation that relates to the spirit of life that was given it in creation by Jesus to perform a specific task of blessing and love. Adding that spirit of life, and using it in acts of worship, and blending that spirit of life in what you are doing in love and compassion, say in the context of healing a blind man, joins your love and compassion to the love and compassion that gave that particular element life; and the power of Jesus is expressed through you, because you are in a right love relationship. In this reading you will see an example of the righteous use of element. So we are going to analyze the use of element during Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem.

               “And the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. And brought the ass and the colt and put on them their clothes and they set him thereon. And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees and strewed them in the way.”  You find out in John that they were branches of palm trees. “And the multitude that went before and that followed,” before Him and after Him, “cried saying Hosanna to the Son of David; blessed is He that cometh in the name of the Lord, Hosanna in the highest. And when He was come into Jerusalem all the city was moved saying who is this? And the multitude said this is Jesus the prophet of Nazareth of Galilee.”

               None of the element used in this reading is accidental. The multitude was celebrating the return of the old form of righteousness and the raising of Lazarus. And as I said, this is a moment seen as very threatening by the establishment and their dependence on the Levitical law. So let us analyze this a little bit. They put clothes on the colt and strewed them in the way on the ground for Him and those with Him to walk on. It was their “garments,” which is the Hebrew word “ad-deh-reth” #155, which is related t #117 which means something is lordly, worthy, glorious, gracious, and powerful. No wonder all the city was moved and said, who is this? They wondered who is being represented as Lordly, worthy, glorious and powerful.  Usually only foreign heads of state are treated in this manner. Jesus both sat on clothes and His donkey walked on them.  In this case garments were being used as the element of righteousness expressly for the spirit of life that the Lord put in them.

               And they cut down palm branches. John 12:13 tells you they were palm branches. Palm trees in the Paleo-Hebrew means to rise up and look we have found and identified the living water. Palm trees exude the feelings of praise.  Did the spirit of life Jesus gave the palm trees join with the spirits and voices and feelings of the rejoicing multitude crying hosanna in the highest? Did that joining magnify the power of that moment when man and creation acted in concert? Certainly it did. That is how all His miracles worked.  Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, we have found and identified the Living Water.  The palm trees and the people were speaking and acting in unison.

               Donkey or ass is #2543, “kam-ore;” go to the root word, #2560, to cover with bitumen.  Here comes the One who is Lordly, worthy, glorious and powerful Who can give you the living water.  He can cover you with bitumen.  The reason is because donkeys were humble and seen to be associated with those who are repentant – thus the supporters of the living water.  The mother, again, was brought along specifically for its definition in righteousness.

               Now the colt. Jesus could have ridden the mother. And the mother didn’t have to go with them as the colt was big enough to ride on. So He brought them both on purpose. Colt, #5895, goes to #5782, which means to openly present yourself. Jesus was openly presenting Himself to the public.  The ancient righteousness was restored to the Hebrew public by John the Baptist. We will maybe speak of John later. Remember John was first to come and restore all things? And the One who has the living water is openly presenting Himself. This is what riding on the colt with garments under Him meant. All this can’t be just a coincidence. Jesus’ whole life was like this. He is the Prince of righteousness. The multitude all knew what they were doing and what it all meant. And the element enjoined here brought the power of God to bear in Jerusalem. They knew that palm trees felt praise. They were acting in concert with the spirit of life that made those palm trees come to life and grow and emit praise each and every day.  

               The multitudes were right with all those elements as was Jesus. They knew what it meant, as did the temple leaders, for Him to be sitting on garments and for His donkey to be walking on their garments with palm leaves strewn in the way. Everybody could see this gracious person coming. You wouldn’t just put your clothes on the ground for some donkey to walk on for nothing. They know what that was all about. They knew why He also brought the mother donkey along because part of what He intended to say with element at His entry was that He that had the living water to give, is openly presenting Himself.  I believe here that Jesus had made a conscious decision to confront this matter of righteousness and the central values of His mission in His task of revealing His Father.

               So to consolidate all this use of the element of righteousness with His entry into Jerusalem into a statement it would go like this:  Jesus had just raised Lazarus from the dead.  Lazarus was well known and the phrase many used was “Lord by this time he stinketh.”  Now this time there was no question that he was dead.  Before it could be thought perhaps those Jesus had raised from the dead were just asleep, like Jairus’ daughter in Luke 8:52.  So this entry into Jerusalem was very deliberate.  The crowds were awaiting Him.  He asked for a colt.  The people sang His praises specifically citing Him as a Son of David, who was universally defined as a righteous king in sharp contrast with many kings which followed, especially Solomon.  The expressions of the multitude and of the element of righteousness were joined together – acting in concert.  What a thrilling expression of the Hebrew culture it must have been for a public dominated by pagan Rome and subjugated by Hellenization.  Those moments exuded freedom.

               Jesus fed His apostles on the seashore after His resurrection with bread and fish. And as I told you before bread is to overcome or to prevail. And fish is to multiply greatly. He said, “feed my sheep.” Help them overcome; help them to multiply greatly.  He cooked them on a fire, see John 21:9.  “Fire” comes from Hebrew #216 is “owr”, which means to illuminate and to bring happiness – feed my sheep, teach them, love them, bring them the happiness of salvation.

               Jesus lived in Capernaum. What do you suppose Capernaum means?  It is a double word, “capern annaham,” #3723, # 3722 and #5151 – to repent and be covered with bitumen.  To cover with bitumen again. The life of Jesus was interlaced with His ability to give the living water.

               He turned the water into wine.  “Wine,” is “chamar” #2560, is to cover with bitumen.  Are you starting to get it? The one who has living water to give turned the water into something that feels holding the living water in their soul.

               And the last thing to touch His lips was vinegar, which is wine that has run its course. And the ability of Jesus to minister to people in the flesh had run its course. So even with the vinegar, He was right with the spirit of life that is in the vinegar. He was right with the spirit of life that is in the hyssop that carried the vinegar to His mouth. Hyssop, #231 when you go to the Paleo-Hebrew it feels to be strong in providing for your kindred. He was laying His life down to provide an example of the love of His Father in submitting to the will of man and He would raise it up again to show evidence of the same thing.  Jesus put clay on the blind man’s eyes and released him from his blindness. “Clay,” meh-let in Hebrew, #4422, is to release or to rescue. Farrar says that human saliva from one who was holy or fasting was seen in the old Hebrew culture to be a primary healing agent.

               Righteousness literally penetrates the life and ministry of Jesus.  He went to Jericho.  A man named Zacchaeus lived there.  He anticipated the arrival of Jesus and wanted to see Him but he was short and couldn’t.  The word “Jericho” is #3405, from #7306 which is Hebrew “ruw-ach”, which means to joyously anticipate something.   He climbed a sycamore tree so he could see Jesus.  The Lord said, “Come down this day I will abide in thy house.”  While Jesus was there, people were murmuring because Zacchaeus was chief among the publicans (tax collectors) and they said, why does He stay with sinners?  While Jesus was in his home, Zacchaeus confessed his sins and rehearsed his repentance to the Lord and the Lord said, “This day hath salvation come to this house.”  The name Zacchaeus means to be made clean and pure, from #2195 in Greek which is from #2141 “zakak”in the Hebrew.  This story is from Luke 19:2-8.  By the way, the word “sycamore,” when traced back to the Paleo-Hebrew, means to look to behold the shining light of the living water. The living water again!  I could cite example after example but I have to shorten it for today. 

               Do you remember Nicodemus?  He was the one among the Sanhedrin who found Jesus and was born again.  He was the one who they kicked out of the Sanhedrin.  He brought things to help with the Lord’s burial.  “Nicodemus” is #3530 in the Greek and it means to be victorious among his brethren.  Was he?  He’s the only one we know of amongst the Sanhedrin who was converted to the Lord.  He was indeed victorious among his brethren.

               It wasn’t just Jesus that was righteous, John the Baptist was righteous. He was clothed with camel’s hair. “Camel,” from #1580, means to ripen or bring forward.  In this case, to ripen applies to the ripening of the age.  Soon Israel would be plucked up by the Romans.  “Hair” is from #1802, “dalath,” which means to let down a bucket to drink water.  John the Baptist brought forward the one who could give you the living water. There it is again.

               Now can you see being clothed in righteousness with this and Jesus wearing wool or linen?  Now you can perhaps understand a little more hungering and thirsting after righteousness. Christians certainly should want to have a right relationship with the spirit of life their Lovely One put into that which He created.  Now do you get it that your righteousness must exceed that of the Pharisees or you can in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven?  He said in Matthew 9:13, “I am not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” He said in Matthew 6:33, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.”  In Matthew 21:32 Jesus says, “John came unto you in the way of righteousness, and ye believed him not.” I John 2:29, “Every one that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” There it is folks.  This reading affirms that the greatest depth of being born again comes in the context of righteous relationships with the spirits of life.  And in I John 3:10 “Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God.”  If Jesus is righteous for all Christians why would John say we must do righteousness?

               Dear folks, here John is actually saying that, unless you are joined and interact with the spirits of life which He put in the elements of the world that He created, you are not of God.  I cited you these references to help you see how critical the definition of righteousness is to those who walked with Jesus and from Jesus own mouth. It is something central to His behavior and ministry and foundational to the early church’s spiritual power; and it was done away with by those overseeing the Gentile Mission – a sobering narrative for Christians and one that has left you stranded in the tribulation times. So, all the people surrounding Jesus in His life and in His ministry loved righteousness. This is just the surface of the biblical righteousness in the life of Christ. I just gave you enough to give you an idea.

               Your Bible is filled with righteousness. It is a right relationship with the life Jesus put into creation which includes your fellow man. Your disadvantage with your language and culture does not lend itself to knowing how to be righteous. That is because your language, culture and religion sprang out of the Gentile Mission, not Jesus’ personal example in ministry. But God knows this and He will have abundant mercy for you and tenderly love you with all His soul, and take this into account – all of His soul!

               Now please know, dear folks, that I am not leading you to a dead end.  You only have to be human with sensitive feelings to be righteous.  You can love the Lord and do whatever it takes to know Him, You can feel by His Spirit.  You have intelligence and intuition and you can know the effects of elements; those four essential things can enable you to be righteous. 

               Let me explain a little.  You can feel.  Have you ever been grieving or troubled and gone outside and stood with a gentle wind blowing on your tear stained face and felt comforted?  You can feel that.  That is righteousness.  You don’t have to know the Hebrew word for wind, “nesha-mah,” means the breath of God; you can feel it yourself.  Your soul knows.  The breath of God is comforting you.    Have you ever felt the joy that a flower has to be picked by some little feminine hand?  That moment of fulfillment for the flower is more important to it than remaining on the stem.  Your soul knows. 

               The effect something has is also a way of knowing in a general sense and by intuition.  Long needle pines, when made into a tea to soak your feet in, can heal your feet from smelling.  That can alert you that pine has something to do with walking in holiness.  Often the effect healing herbs have indicates the nature of the spirit of life that the Lord put in them and calls you to repentance to align yourself with those feelings to be helped by them.  Underlying all this is an all-encompassing love for Jesus in your soul.

               For those of you that look at life through eyes of humility and love, righteousness is natural for you to feel and participate in.  So it is incumbent on you to do what you can. Study the Hebrew language and its righteous definitions. You are just as able to be righteous in your natural environment as Jesus was in His. Some of you who do not have palm trees have some other tree that feels praise: cottonwood or aspen or trees that have leaves that wave and flutter in the wind like a rejoicing person with upraised hands.

               Now let’s move on. Out your window is a tree. I hope anyone listening can look out their window and see a tree. The tree loves you.  A Man made that tree; a Man with a mother who knows what it is like to love and be human. A Man made the wind that blows on that tree. A tree in Hebrew is #353 from #352, “eylown” and sometimes “ayil,” it means to be strong.  To be strong is an expression of how much you are loved.  The tree always feels that you are loved by God and it is calling you to be strong in your holiness; it is a voice of repentance that lifts and encourages.  A Man made the tree and the wind and the wood that is in this building, the hill you are setting on, the ears you’re hearing with, the body you live in. A Man made it. Jesus said God is a Spirit. God who is a Spirit didn’t make the tree. He made the spirit that lives in the tree and Jesus made the tree for that spirit to live in. He sent His Son to be the Creator - to give element form. So a Man who loves you created it.  One who understands all you go through when you are worn down and discouraged and feels with you all that you feel, a Man who had brothers and sisters like you do; He had to be strong to go where He needed to go. Because a Man who loves you built His love into that tree, the tree loves you - identifiably, purposefully, loves you – so be strong.  Do your repentance.  It gives you oxygen to breath, shade, fruit, wood, sap for syrup; and things expressing love too numerous to cite.  Trees love you in so many ways.

               Here is another instance, the word for “almond” means to be ever wakeful or to see. According to the idea that Hebrew indicates a spiritual definition, the feeling of seeing and the dynamic of seeing is the very spirit of life Jesus put in the almond tree. It is the cause of the miracle of an almond nut germinating and becoming a tree.  I will tell you of a healing later.  It could be said therefore that the almond tree is filled with the spirit of life from Christ that is the spirit of seeing with your eyes. So the spirit of life that gives you almonds to eat and makes little nuts grow into trees and produce fruit is a feeling born in Jesus’ heart that has to do with seeing.

               Everything in creation is like that. And the Hebrew language will give you many, many such definitions of the spirits of life. It actually is a very fun undertaking to investigate it and search out these things. Get yourself a Strong’s Concordance of the Bible and if you can also a book by Jeff Benner titled Ancient Hebrew Language and Alphabet.  Each and every form that element has taken was made to express some specific aspect of Jesus’ love for you, and to give you life. This knowledge has been hidden from Christianity. And righteousness is the way for you to express your salvation here in this life. So many Christians think that they can’t know if they have salvation or not until after they die.  There is another group that thinks that they have salvation in this life but salvation for the majority only applies to them after they die. They believe they will go to heaven. Salvation, for them, is going to heaven.  Many hold that this life is a prison to escape from.

            Christ said I come that you may have life and have it more abundantly – here.  Righteousness is how one experiences salvation in this life. It is impossible for any Christian community to establish the new covenant without righteousness.  This is the new covenant, Jeremiah 31:31-34 “Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord:

 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

               For every person to know the Lord for themselves and not have to depend on someone else to know Him for them is the new covenant. You have to be right with the spirits of life that He put into your world in order to experience the immensity of His love for you and be joined in your life with His life and know Him for yourself.   You don’t have to know them all at once.  That doesn’t mean you can only have the right relationship with things that are holy, you can have a right relationship with something that is not holy by having nothing to do with it. You can have a right relationship with pornography by not having anything to do with it, even to not think about it. That is the right relationship. Those right relationships cause one to be filled with the spirit and presence of Jesus’ Father. It is the spirit of life Jesus put into creation that joins you to His Father, hence His definition of salvation. It is repentance that joins you to Jesus.  It is the essence of both where you are going and Who is going with you. And so, when Christ said that God is a Spirit in John 4:24, He was demonstrating the importance of Who sent Him.  Remember how many times He said “He sent me?”  He said this to demonstrate for us who His Father was and is. And the Spirit of His Father is one of the spirits He put into all things that transformed into our temporal world.

               Jesus says, I am the door. “Door,” is Strong’s # 1817 from #1802, “galaw,” to let down a bucket to draw out water - the Living Water again, to cover with bitumen.  He is the Good Shepherd.  The word “good” is #2896, and the word “shepherd” is #7462, which together means to associate with as a friend in loving kindness. Boy I hope you are listening folks.  Here is your Man. He is the one who will help you climb out of the abyss of the tribulation times. The Christian holocaust is now underway. You need to allow Him to associate with you as your friend in loving kindness. You’re to let your Good Shepherd guide you and lead you. And He is in all of the holy elements of creation for you to interact with. And I will explain more about any exceptions in our next session. He is there to love you. He is there to empower you and give you strength.  Above all things, He is there to guide you in your daily walk with His Holy Spirit, so that you can experience His love for you in element - in the wind, the clouds, a mountain, or a sweet river of water or in the smile of the person beside you.  And people do this in a very limited way when they don’t know what righteousness is and how to be righteous.

               I want to tell you a story about a tree that loved me. I have lots of stories like it but this one I want to tell you about happened when I was a sophomore in high school and it is a good illustration of the living spirit of life in a tree. I had to take a short cut through the woods to get to school rather than going a long way around; this was on the Oregon coast in a town called Cloverdale. And there was a jersey bull in that pasture and I had to watch because if he came I had to run. And I could out run him when I was that age. And sometimes I’d have to jump the fence because the bull was right behind me and I would tear my clothes and get into trouble when I came home.  But normally I just had to walk. And this time when I was walking there were 6 or 8

inches of new snow on the ground. And as I walked in a straight line, off to one side was a big alder tree. It was probably two feet or more on the stump. They get really big out there. And as I went by this tree, as I approached to go by it, it was afraid. I felt it clearly. And I stopped when I got right by it and I thought, “What is the matter with that tree?” It was afraid; it felt “don’t get near me.” I could feel that feeling, not hear words, I just felt it so strong it may as well been words.

So I turned from my straight trail and walked slowly toward the tree. My tracks were like a T. And I turned at a right angle and I walked toward this tree. And as I got closer and closer to this tree, the more and more alarmed the tree became. And with more urgency the tree was afraid. And I felt to not get close to this tree. So I walked up as close as 10 or 15 feet away and the feeling became so strong of alarm that I walked backwards keeping my eyes on the tree as I went, looking at the tree all the way back to my trail. And I thought, “wow, there is something so strange with that tree.” 

So I went on to school. And then coming home from school that tree was laying over my footsteps in the snow, covering them completely up clear to the trail; it buried my steps, the whole line of them. Somebody had cut the tree off completely at ground level without a back cut and it was completely balanced just standing there waiting for the wind to blow it over. And the snow was hiding the cut and the sawdust, so there was no trace of it being cut. They had wedged the saw through it. The tree loved me. I could feel its love for me. It didn’t want to hurt me. It knew it was going to fall right where I was. The umbrella of an alder tree is very wide and my chances of being able to outrun it in the snow were slim.

What was it about the tree that it could love me? A Man who loves me made the tree. A Man. My lovely Redeemer and Savior made the tree and the tree had feelings and could express them. What else would you expect but love when He was the One who made it and put in it a spirit of life? He came to give life to all things, remember? I could not have outrun it. His love for me in the tree saved my life. A Man who created me and my world wanted me to have the gift of life had made the tree.

When I was young my dad was a mountain hunting guide. He was for much of his life, in the Wallowa Mountains in Oregon. He had 20 square miles allotted to him by the government for exclusive hunting rights on federal land. And we had many horse trails going everywhere there. It was more than 3000 feet from the canyon rim where his cabin and corral stood down to the bottom where the hunting camp was. And this was in what is called Joseph Creek Canyon. This is going to now be a story about a large rock that loved me. In this canyon there were trails that the hunters followed in every direction, because dad had his camp in the center of the 20 square miles. And some of these trails had big cliffs beside them going straight down hundreds of feet. There where switch backs; it was mountainous country. There was one place where there was a shale slide several hundred yards long coming down on one side of the trail and immediately on the other side was a 500 foot cliff going down right beside the trail that cut back under the trail. So you could drop a rock off and not hear it hit until it came to the river. I used to go on this trail with my dad; he had 15 or 16 horses usually. And there was this great big rock, and I mean a big rock. It was probably the size of McGregor’s barn, a big rock round and smooth like a big boulder, probably 60 feet wide and 80 feet tall. And it was standing at the top edge of this shale slide. It was shaped like an egg.

And every time I would ride by there with this big old 500’ cliff right beside me, I would look up at this great big rock, and that rock was afraid it could fall on us. And I would say, “Dad that rock is afraid it is going to fall on us.” And he would say every time, “Awe, that rock has been there a million years.  It’s not going anywhere.” Every year that I would ride by there, I would feel that rock not wanting to fall on us. And my dad would always have the same reply. That rock has been there a million years it’s not going anywhere.

So one time we had a church older youth camp down there without my dad. And when we all rode by that place, I thought “Ahah! Dad’s not here, now is my chance to find out about that rock”. A whole string of riders went by, and me and another guy took up the rear. And when they all had gone by, I told them to keep going to the next nearest point and wait for us. The other guy with me wanted to check out the rock too. It took them about an hour to get there. And they could see real good the whole area of the slide. While they were doing that, Dick and I started up the slide. We didn’t go up directly under the rock. I just had to know why this rock was afraid it would fall on us when it had been there a million years.

So we started up; it took us more than an hour to climb up there. Shale slides are very hard to climb because they slide under your feet. It was probably half a mile. And it was hot and we were on the sunny slope. It was in July. And I arrived a few feet ahead of Dick. And when I got up there I was out of breath and hot. So I went behind the rock in the shade and leaned one hand on the rock to catch my breath. And this guy Dick was right behind me about 10 feet from the rock. And I looked up; the rock took up the whole sky and it kind of went behind me as well. And when I just touched it to lean on it, it started to move. At first I wondered if I was just dizzy from the heat and the climb but it was moving in a very slow motion. And I looked at the clouds to determine if I was just seeing things. But it was indeed moving. And Dick said, “It’s moving.  What did you do? Why didn’t you wait for me?” And I said, “I just leaned on it a little”. And this huge rock started over. And it tumbled down that shale slide end over end and over the cliff like a ski jump. And when it tumbled it shook the earth. And after it went over the cliff, all was silent for a moment and then it sounded like thunder and a cloud of dust came up above the cliff. It shattered and dammed up the river. And dead fish were everywhere. And boy was I glad we had tied our horses out of the way.

A Man made that rock, a Man who loved us. And the rock had been there a million years and my dad was right. But the rock knew it was about to fall. A strong breeze could have pushed it over on us. Horses and riders panicking on the brink of such a cliff you certainly do not want. If we had walked up underneath it, just sliding the shale away from it may have brought it down on us. We couldn’t have run in the shale to get away from it. All the words for “rock” indicate the spirit of life that they have is to protect you.  See # 4581, #5553, and #6697 in Hebrew in your Strong’s Concordance.  That rock was utterly filled with the spirit of protection.  It just could not stand the thought of hurting us.  So not only is He there to love you and protect you, He’s there to love you in somebody else’s behalf - His Father. He’s there to magnify your spiritual power, your power to heal; your power to raise the dead.

Now I have told you two stories: one when a tree loved me and one when a rock loved a group of us. That was done without the Hebrew language or culture. The Hebrew culture can give you definitions of what the spirit of life is in many things, but definitions are not righteousness; they are rather a guide to help you be righteous. Righteousness is when the spirit of life in you joins and acts in concert with, or shares feelings with the spirit of life Jesus put into something in creation, which, don’t forget, includes your neighbor. I felt what the spirit of life was feeling in the tree and the rock that Jesus put there.

There are four spirits of life in all things good and godly. There is the Spirit of the Father, the Spirit of His Son our Redeemer, the spirit of why God created you, and the spirit of life of whatever forms that element has taken, i.e. a rock, a tree, or your fellows, etc. I might say more about this in our last session next week. When you feel the spirit of life in element and you are right with it, you magnify the presence of Jesus in your life and whatever you do you are doing in compassion and understanding as He and the angels of heaven would do.

The same thing happens with wicked people. When they use the spirit of the adversary, they magnify his presence and power in their lives. That is the opposite of righteousness. It is called wickedness. That is the very definition of wickedness and it always has been. Right now there is a wave of wicked empowerment in our world. Oh, for the day when Christ’s people are empowered in righteousness. So there is the element of righteousness and the element of wickedness. 

Christ is the Prince of righteousness. His spirit of life put into creation only loves, blesses, forgives, heals, and gives the gift of life. The spirit of the adversary only hates, curses, accuses, causes dismay, and brings death. So our way is clear and the path is straight. The power of Christianity lies in your experiencing and knowing Him in accordance with the spirit of life that He put into creation.

I am going to give you another example. I was in Arizona in a ministerial capacity. I was sitting on the porch of the Pinon Trading Post on the Navajo Reservation.  And I watched a young woman go in carrying a three or four year old girl, and she had to hold the little girl’s head up for her.  The girl had Downs Syndrome and could not walk or talk.  Somehow this young woman had heard about my ministry there and when she came out of the store she came over to me and asked if I would pray so the Lord could heal her little girl.  I told her I would ask the Lord what He wanted me to do.  She told me where she lived.  It was a little village called Sheep’s Head.  I told her I knew where it was and that I would come by in a few days to tell her what I found out from the Lord.  The Lord told me by His Spirit that He wanted the child’s mind to be born and to do the prayers.

So, I stopped by and told them in the village.  They asked me what they must do to repent and to get ready.  I told them to clean up the hogan where we would be praying and in two days I would come to do the prayers.  When I arrived they had cleaned up the whole village.  They said they had worked all night.  It was spotless.  I realized how much effort they had put into it and how much faith they had that the Lord would heal the child.  Her name was Eugenia.  So I came.  I did the ceremony as they would do it in their terms of the element of righteousness.  They have the one who’s being prayed over sit on a prayer rug.  They put cedar on coals to bless with.  They held eagle feathers.  Eugenia was held on her grandmother’s lap the whole time.

I knew what to do.  You see, I know Jesus is the Creator and that He put His feelings of immense love into what He created – just for Eugenia.  So I anointed her with oil and called upon the Lord and expressed how wonderful their faith was.  And I called the Spirit of our living Jesus from the cliffs and the sand and the sage and the clouds and the wind to come to restore Eugenia and to give birth to her mind.  Up to that time, she could not even hold her head up.  I felt the love of our Dear One come to this little girl with great power.  Everybody felt it.  I asked for the spirit of protection to come from the rock cliffs to protect what the Lord intended for this child when He created her.  He did not intend for her to have Downs Syndrome.  I asked for the spirit of life in the sand to distance her from evil.  I asked for the spirit of life in the sagebrush to bring to her and all her own peace of mind in the Lord.  I asked the wind to blow to give her breath to comfort her with a knowledge of her salvation in her later years.  And I asked the clouds to look with God upon her to heal her and give birth to her mind.  We were very moved and had tears of joy at the presence of the Spirit of the Lord.  When I was done, Eugenia was asleep.  We had a meal and I left.

A couple of days later, I stopped by and they had me sit down.  Eugenia walked across the room and got up into my lap.  She looked into my eyes and said, “naw-daw,” which is Navajo for corn.  It was her first word.  She had been walking since she woke up after her ceremony.  My, the Lord is so good.  She was completely healed of Downs Syndrome and later went to school and was completely normal.  I suppose now she is a grandmother.

So because of that healing, there was a village of Navajos that I had never met, that sent a woman to talk to me and she asked me if I would ask the Lord to heal their grandfather. He was in his 80s; he had tuberculosis and the hospital had sent him home to die. The Navajos don’t like to go into a room where someone had died so if people died in hospitals, they would not go there. And I didn’t know if I could do it, after all he was very old.  But I know that repentance can heal, like when you read in the book of James 5:14-16, “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.  Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much.” It says, you will notice, that by the confession of their sins they will be healed.

So I asked the Lord what to do. These people were urgent. This man was alone in his village with only his oldest daughter to care for him. When someone is dying, they all go elsewhere and leave the village empty except for a caregiver. So they sent him home to die. His oldest daughter is the one who came and asked me. The people in the village where I was, unbeknownst to me, were their relatives. And they lived at the opening of Twisted Water Canyon. That is where this very old man was. I don’t know the name of his village.  So I went out alone to ask the Lord. The Lord said, “The people are too urgent upon me for me to heal him. If his family will rest upon their faith and are willing to give him back to me, I will heal him. If they will do that repentance, I will prolong his days.” I didn’t know what they would think of this. So I told her that. I said, “The Lord is telling me that if you all will trust Him and have faith in Him and be willing to give your father back to Him, He will prolong his life.”  

They called a meeting and it lasted several hours. Everyone came from many villages. I didn’t realize he was related to so many. And they all decided together that they would do that repentance and be willing to trust the Lord and be willing to give their old father to the Lord if He wanted him now. So I stayed outside and I waited for word of the decision. I was sitting in the sand. They came out and one who could speak English spoke to me. And I didn’t know what they were going to say. I didn’t know but they might have said, “We don’t believe like you do,” or something like that. They were all strangers to me except for a few where I was staying. And they said, “We have decided to ask God to forgive us for wanting him to stay.” A hard decision. They did their repentance.

So now I had to do my job. So I went over with his daughter and I didn’t know what to expect at all. And we went into this little hogan with a dirt floor. And he was laying in the fetal position over against the wall. The room was empty.  And he was asleep. I thought he may be dead. I didn’t know. And his daughter woke him up. And he gurgled from so much fluid in his lungs. She had to keep wiping off this awful yellow stuff coming out of his mouth. And she said, “The white man is here to pray for you.” The word for white man is “belagona.” And he said, “How is he going to do it?”  And she turned and looked at me; I could understand Navajo and I said, “I am going to do it the right way.” And he knew what I meant. And I was just going to anoint him and pray like they do with cedar on the coals where he was laying. And I had a Navajo prayer rug that I brought along that they usually like to use to sit on while they are prayed over. I had used it with Eugenia. And so he started to try to get up. I said, “I can do it right here,” in Navajo. And he said, “I thought you said you were going to do it the right way.” So he crawled and pulled himself over to the center of the room so he could sit on the rug there facing the door to the east. He took several agonizing minutes to get there. They had a little place to put the coals on. And in my compassion for him, I kept thinking I shouldn’t have said I am going to do it the right way. His daughter and I watched in agony at his effort to get himself out there and sitting up on the rug. We watched as he was having such a hard time inching his way over to this prayer rug. Both of us were crying, we felt so much love for him. And finally he got himself over there and he got himself sitting up, and he sat there with his head drooping down, having barely made it. He held his eagle feathers and I put cedar on the coals and fanned the smoke on him with his feathers. I used the element of righteousness in the way they do.

And as I began to pray, I anointed him with oil. I called God the Navajo name for Jesus –which is Degin een Linii, which means Jesus who is in all things. He knew exactly what that meant. I began to ask the Spirit of Jesus to come to him from the life that was all around this wonderful old man. The family had previously showed me a row of graves spanning thirteen generations of their family. They were all graves of generations of grandmothers. That is how long his family had lived in that village.

This was about 50 years ago now.  He was born there and he herded his sheep there as a little boy and raised his family in that place and everything there felt the spirit of life Jesus had put in all that was there for him. The hills, sand, cliffs, grass, the washes all knew him and the life Jesus had given him. And everything around him knew the desires of Jesus in His heart for this man to have his life prolonged.

So as I prayed, I invited the living Spirit of Jesus to come to bring him life. And I could feel it coming from all the life around me: from the sand, the hills, rocks, clouds – from everything. In addition to what I told you I had asked for with Eugenia, I asked the spirit Jesus put into the hills to give His feet more years to walk on them.  I asked the spirit Jesus put into the grass to cleanse him of his sickness.  I asked the spirit Jesus put into the streams in the washes to cleanse his spirit of any uncleanness and I asked the clouds to look with God upon him to love him and to acknowledge the repentance of the family he had fathered and taught to love His Lord.  And when I was done, he just tipped over and went back to sleep. And I didn’t know what had happened. I just knew that the spirit of life Jesus put into all of our natural surroundings came with great power.  So did his daughter.

A couple days later, I was playing volleyball with a bunch of youth up in Twisted Water Canyon and somebody hit the ball down into the wash and I went down there to get it. And as I came up out of that wash, my eyes were level with the ground and I could see across the ground a long ways off.  I could see a cloud of dust coming our way. So we kept playing and I kept watching it. And pretty soon, I could see it was a horse and a rider. And soon this guy came galloping up on this horse and, before the horse even stopped, he jumped off and they both kind of bounced on the ground together. The horse bounced to a stop because the man was off. And he whipped his lines around a tree and said, “Where is the food?” I said to the guy beside me, “Who is that?” And he said, “That is grandpa, who you prayed for a couple days ago.” Everybody knew he was healed except for me.  He lived 5 more years.  I don’t know what he ended up dying from but they said it wasn’t tuberculosis. Folks, here is your Man, the Man of love, your Creator – Jesus the Nazarene, the One who can empower you to raise the dead.

Now I have shared these very sacred experiences with you.  I don’t like to share such things with those whom I am not intimately acquainted with.  It feels braggy to me, but the Lord has impressed upon me by His Spirit that you hearing these testimonies is more important to you and to Him than what anyone thinks of me.  The Lord did all that I have told you.  I am baring my soul to you so that you can choose to find your endowment with Christ-like power.  The Lord and His loved ones are the only ones who benefits when He has His people blessed. 

So I am going to tell you another story.  This story is one where I was only marginally involved and it is a good example because it shows you that you can really be empowered also by the Lord as your Creator.  Some time ago, a couple who lived in Michigan came to see me.  The wife worked in a day care center.  At her work was a little blind black boy, who was three or four years old.  He was born blind.  This woman loved this little boy.  And she asked me if I could give her any advice as to how he might be healed.  She said she could not pray for him at work because the building was financed with Federal money and no prayers were allowed in the building.  I gave her some almond blossoms.  The word for “almond” in Hebrew is #8247, from the root word #8245, “sha-ked,” to be awake, on the lookout, to watch.  The spirit of Jesus that gives almonds their life is that of seeing.  I told her how to use them and to look for a time when she could pray for this little son. 

One day not long after that, the mother had car trouble and asked the woman to take her son to her house and she would pick him up there, as they would close the day care center at a certain time.  When she brought the boy home, she had her chance to do her prayers using the element of righteousness.  She used it very simply.  The little boy just held it in his hand.  She did it and the mother came and picked up her son.  That was on a Friday.  On Monday when the woman went to work, she saw the boy sitting on the floor in a gymnasium.  He pointed across the room and said, “I want one of those.”  She picked him up and carried him across the room and she said, “What is it you want?”  He pointed to a blue ball and said, “I want that.”  She embraced him with many tears.  The doctors said for some reason he began to see.  He could see colors and movement and shapes.  His sight got better and better.  This woman related to me that when she prayed she felt the Spirit of the Lord come to this little boy from absolutely everywhere but especially from the spirit of life in the almond blossoms.

Jesus, the Man, is there in creation to help you, to love who you love, and to empower you through your repentance. And it is in the form of righteousness when you are right with His Spirit of life in element. Jesus is the Creator. He is the Prince of righteousness, compassion, healing, forgiveness and life.  Without love and repentance, now listen carefully folks, the use of element can drift into New Age or something worse.  Repentance is the guiding principal for all the use of element of righteousness for Christians. 

Now there are hundreds of definitions of the spirits of life Christ put into the things in creation. Folks, are you listening?  Do you realize what I am telling you?  I am telling you how to heal the sick and the disabled and how to raise the dead.  This is not pretend.  You must in no uncertain terms come into a close daily walk with the Man, Jesus.  You must do your repentance before Him and discern what He wants and what He is feeling and also His view on any given thing.  Then you can be right with Him and the life He put into the things that bring healing and life.  You can’t just have it because you want it.  You have to walk in what is called perfection of way.  “Be ye perfect as my Father in heaven is perfect.”  How you do that is you become very familiar and comfortable with repentance.  You actually learn to love repentance.  Repent for any thought that the Spirit is not with in your mind.  Be continually willing to be humble and to repent before the Lord, so as to stay in constant harmony with His Spirit: only love, only bless, and be thankful.

Real repentance is not brow-beating yourself.  Repentance is joyous because it links you to the One you love – your Redeemer.  Repentance is changing something in your life from what you have been feeling or doing to what God feels or does instead.  The adversary hates repentance and humility and virtue.  He fears righteousness.  He wants you to be separate and alien from the Spirit and presence of Jesus in your world.  Repentance is the highest spiritual state one can enter into.  It joins you directly to Jesus.  It is the gateway to everything you were created to be.  All this must be undergirded with a real understanding of the character of God hence the importance of Jesus’ view of His Father.  Not the traditional or Levitical view expressed in so many places, but the view and perspective Jesus has of His Father.  Just think, if only a handful of you do this, you can change the course of Christianity and bring it back to its rightful place of spiritual power like an unstoppable beacon or wave of love and compassion to bring salvation.

Knowing what righteousness is helps you to know where to look to feel Him, and you can feel it by His Spirit because of His grace and love for you. He knows what you are capable of. We know many definitions of righteousness. And the wind and the clouds and the rain obey us here in community, as they would anyone who is right with what they feel.  And the food we eat, many times, is based on the spirit of life Christ put into what specific things we eat. So you can celebrate and be happy and rejoice when you eat any kind of squash, because every kind of squash feels something different about celebrating and rejoicing with the life you are given. That is the kind of thing you have that allows the spirit of life to empower you in your health and in your daily walk with Him.  Search out the various meaning of the kinds of foods you eat.  Plan meals to fill specific spiritual and emotional needs.

When righteousness was done away, because it was perceived and taught that only one person could be righteous, the Christian faith languished. And that also happened when righteousness was keeping the Levitical law instead of the law of love and virtue and being right with the spirits of life in creation; in short, when Jesus is not the Creator, or He is the Creator only as an abstract idea, your power is gone. I am going to read a statement to you found in the International Bible Dictionary on page 109.  It reads, “In Christian theology the atonement is the central doctrine of faith. It can properly include all that Jesus accomplished for us on the cross.”  What happened to being covered with bitumen?  There is no other definition for the word “atonement” in the ancient Hebrew.

When you take the living water away from Jesus and replace it with death, you have lost Him as Creator, not theoretically, but literally you cannot be covered with bitumen. You can’t connect with the living water because you don’t even know that you can; that is you don’t know how to connect with the life that He put into all things for you to feel with Him.

Next week in the last session of this series, I am going to do a session on how to divide the spirits of good and evil in our world: how to divide powers.  Because not only do Christians need to know how to be righteous, they also need to know how to avoid evil. And in regards to righteousness, oh people, please listen to me and be diligent students of your Bible and appeal to the Comforter to teach you all things. The Lord needs you so badly to be empowered. The evil of this world is closing in on His people worldwide. We are well into the Christian holocaust and your fellow Christians and loved ones around the world are in danger.  You need to be empowered with the spirit of life provided so carefully and lovingly for you by your Creator for them and for any who the Lord moves you to minister to. Thank you.