John 11 contains probably one of the most powerful stories in all of Scripture – The raising of Lazarus. I remember my mom telling me the time she had gone to see the movie, The Greatest Story Ever Told. She said when it came time for the intermission, no one in the theater got up or even moved. You see, they had just ended the first part of the movie with the raising of Lazarus.
When Messiah uttered the words to Martha, ”I am the resurrection and the life”, creation rumbled and groaned. All of heaven and earth heard that statement that day. It is a statement that rattled the cages of darkness; invoking great fear on the powers of the underworld.
The little village of Beyth Anyah (Bethany) wept that day. Martha and Mary were broken hearted at the loss of their brother, for they loved him very much. The Master loved him also; very deeply. The shortest verse in all of Scripture is ‘Yahushua wept’. The sisters said, if only You had come earlier our brother would not of died. The Yehudim there that day said, ‘isn’t this the one who opened the eyes of the blind, yet could He not prevent him from dying’?
It is only when death occurs that one realizes how much ‘The Resurrection’ is needed. Mary, Martha and all the people there that day, were broken and helpless, with hearts as tender as little children. What was precious to them had died. They longed for comfort and a lifting of the pain and sorrow of the loss they had experienced. All the things in their life, up to that point, didn’t seem to matter anymore, but only to be relieved of the grief they felt.
The process of death is a grieving process. The pain of letting go comes from the helplessness to hold on to what we hold dear any longer. It is only when all the hurt, loss, brokenness and abuse that we have carried all our life, is finally laid down at the feet of Messiah, that He responds with, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he dies, he shall live”.
He weeps for us to believe in the very reason He was sent into the world; to redeem back to His Father those who would come unto Him as helpless little children (His family). He weeps because His only passion is to take that which was dead and bring it to life again. He is the Creator, He cannot help but to create life and to restore something to life that was previously dead. His nature is life.
Death to self is a grieving process. The sin, hang-ups, hurts, hate, rejections and pain we have held onto all our life, often seem to be our only reason to live. ‘I mean, without the baggage I carry in my life, I have no justification to live the way I do any longer… right?’ Letting go of what seems to be one’s own identity most certainly is as painful as losing a loved one. If the sin I hold onto, cling to with all my heart is gone, I no longer am able to control my own life or others in doing what will bring me the greatest happiness.
This morning, at 2:20 AM, I awoke with these words in my spirit:
“when what is most precious to you is dead, only then can He come and raise you to life”
It is not until we decide to die to what seems to be life in our eyes, that we can be raised to what is life in His eyes. The sin, the emotional hang-ups, the blaming of others for our own state of being, must die and be buried, rolling the stone in front of the tomb and portal of our past. It is only when we have laid to rest our most precious life and come to Him in tears and brokenness, with the humility of a child, that He declares, “COME FORTH”. Only the Author of Life, can raise up a new life from one that has been eaten away at, rotting and stinking. Our old decaying life – the past, is now raised to new life – the future. He raises us up out of the ash heap and places our feet upon a rock. The Master of Life raises our life, so others can believe He is the resurrection and the life (Ezekiel 37:6 and John 11:42).
The seed must be buried to bring forth new life – new life must come forth to bear fruit. There is no fruit without first dying. What if the only thing that is keeping someone in your life from believing in the Resurrection and the Life, is your own inability to die and bury your own self. How can other’s see the esteem and resurrection power of the Most High, if we are not putting ourselves into a place to be resurrected? Our own death to self could mean the resurrection life of someone else. This is the true meaning of laying one’s life down for a friend.
Death to self is hard. He never said it would be easy. It grieves to let go of what so ‘easily entangles us’. If right now, what is of precious value in our sight does not become what is of precious value in His sight, we are merely covering up our own ability to see what He sees for our future. If this is the case, we are living our future now and remain forever blinded to what He has called us to be. The time is now to evaluate what we hold onto as precious and dear, and to realize that the only thing that will be left standing is what is precious and dear to the heart of the Father. It’s time we COME FORTH from our slumber and lose the grave clothes of our past. The final call to COME FORTH is soon with the shofar blast of His coming.
Now, more than ever, is the time to bury what He sees as dead; for to continue to carry around the corpses of our past and the sin of our present, is to reject the very reason Messiah entered the world; to resurrect the eternally dead through belief in the eternally Alive.
“For to me, to live is Messiah, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21)
Derek thank you so much for such an awesome message…what a timely word it is for me. I rejoice in receiving newness of life in Yahushua Messiah! Annie
Praise Abba for His faithfulness and kindness!!
Your words pull no punches – they are from Abba right to the heart of those He loves. He wants to breathe resurrection life into us, but so often it by our own will that He is denied this privilege. Be tie His hands from helping us. We are our own worst enemy. Letting go of what we cling onto as precious, as being a part of us, is truly like death. But, that’s where faith comes in–believing there is “the other side” after death – the side of freedom in resurrection life. Thank you for giving us the heart of Yahuweh–not just words, but how He feels about things.
Shalom, Brother Derek and Sister Rivkah
This morning I am led to contact you to tell you how much Abba Father is pleasing with you both as a couple in echad in His words and His works.
I enjoyed so much of your writings on The Well Trodden. Other than the content, I especially appreciate the “personal prose” style of sincere writing from the heart that being so transparent or open to the readers the soul searching process of the writers :). I have forwarded your articles to hundreds of my christian email’s list already!!
I would like also to propose to you for posting your writings: Lazarus, ” COME FORTH” and The Living Water to our ministry website: http://www.man-child.com on the feature writing section, and from there, I will direct the readers through a link to your site: “The Well Trodden”; would you mind if I do this as a service to our Master Yahushua?
Since last year Nov, we set up the Google Analytics for our website, the visitors count to date has reached 6169 hits! Praise YAH!
http://goo.gl/#analytics/goo.gl/CzMkcY/all_time ( you have to click twice, to be able to check the visitors hit; .first time it will direct to google URL shortener; this is where you can get your website shortener URL.. )
http://goo.gl/CzMkcY ( it will goes to >> http://www.man-child.com )
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I have published a couple of Yedidah’s article in our site on the Research Articles Section; and the readers should also be led to the MIKVAH ‘s site too I was going to inform her about this request by letting her to see how it would be looked like after the article being posted in the website. However, my father-in-law (aged 87) passed away in the mid of Dec, we were busying with my mothet-in-law adjustment issues, and after that, my mother-in-law (age 85) got a stroke at beginning of Feb. Only recently she is discharged from Hospital as well as rehab center….since then, I have been delaying to contact sister Yedidah about the mater of posting of her articles in our website. Since you are the administrator of Mikvah’s site, would you please convey my intention to sister Yadidah?
I am a Chinese origin from Singapore. This is one of my personal testimonies posted on the Man-Child site: http://man-child.com/?p=1411 *Prayerfully Arranged Marriage * The way Sister Rivkah described of that both of your prayers and heart desires towards our Master Yahushua in the article of The Shabba Thoughts ( 2/8/2014), describes the same prayers and heart desires that my husband and I have been living in. Praise Yah for gathering His loved ones in such a time like this! Joh 13:1 And before the Festival of the Passover, יהושע knowing that His hour had come that He should move out of this world unto the Father, having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end.
When we first get to know sister Yedidah’s testimonies in late 2012, we are so encouraged by knowing someone like “SPIRIT” exists; get the revelations of His NAME, worship HIM according to HIS terms and not ours, willing to make changes to anything relating and pleasing to our Avinu Father YHWH; guard HIS Torah yet flows in the realm of RUACH Hakodesh; not afraid to be a fighter, a warrior Bride of Our Melek HaMashiach for HIS Reign come now on earth as it is in Shamayim! Walk in the RUACH YHWH, walk in the Power of YHWH….We have met many Torah observers, they are sincere followers of YAH, but somehow they are very distance from walking into the supernatural realm of the manifestation of the power of RUACH Hakodesh of YHWH; hence, we are in great joy and praise YAH for the (balance) testimonies that displaying HIS Fullness through the life of our sister Yedidah; and now we are so privilege to witnessing both of you launching in echad into the high calling of our Messiah Yahushua, for HIS perfect will be done through you on earth as it is in Shamayim. HalleluYAH.
Our Chinese ministry site is : http://www.yaharise.com The Chinese Yah’s Praises in youtube channel for Yaharise.com can be found:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WkNU6P38yQ&list=PLH0s42Bm_AGGKdlXs8uSx3jCki4Z5aafe(Shalom Soujoner)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHgdyDpEdlY&list=PLH0s42Bm_AGGKdlXs8uSx3jCki4Z5aafe( Shabbat Shalom Worship Series)
Oh, one more thing, we are not using all words that contain images of pagan deity in our writings as well as verbal words, if possible, we use the Hebrew words instead. You can find out more on this subject and those words eg: glory, faith, hope, grace, victory, liberty, wisdom, charisma, charity .. including those words with wicked root like bless vs Baruch, peace vs Shalom that we have made a list of it to date from our book ( Jos 23:7 so as not to go in among these nations, these who remain among you. And make no mention of the name of their mighty ones; nor swear by them, nor serve them nor bow down to them. Also See Exo 23:13.) :The Man Child of the book of revelation 12:5 http://man-child.com/?page_id=164 or click on Mission: http://man-child.com/?page_id=782 This is taken from man-child book:
” ….. However, the use of these words as understood today, bear a relationship to their original use, although few people, if any, have a complete understanding of the essence of that relationship.
For example, the words: “blessing, bless, and blessed” are derived from the German root word: “bloedsian” with its origin being rooted in a blood pagan ritual of human sacrifice to the pagan deity Tammuz, forming the basis of what is now called “Ash Wednesday” in the Catholic religion. In earlier times, infants were slaughtered and hung upside down, so that their blood could be drained and collected in a vile. The corpses were then burned, with the ash of the corpse mixed with the previously collected blood; whereupon this mixture was marked on the foreheads of the faithful in the form of a “cross”. In reality, these markings were actually a “T” for Tammuz; yet, due to “religion”, this was called making the sign of the “cross.” The word “bless” was actually used to curse believers, and replaced the Hebrew word, “barak” or “baruch, ” identified as number 1288 in Strong’s Hebrew & Greek Dictionary, which was and still is defined as we essentially give meaning to the words, “bless, blessing, or blessed” that we use today. Another title of nefarious origin is the word, “lord, Lord, or LORD,” being directly connected to the worship of Baal, a pagan sun god. Literally translated into Hebrew . . . Lord, LORD, or lord means “Baal”. [See Exod 20:7; 23:13; Josh 23:6-7; Isa 6:9; 29:13; 55:3; Gal 1:14; 2 Thes 2:15; Matt 15:6-9, 11]. There are of course, other words and titles, but the following five references in connection with the title of Lord, LORD, or lord make this perfectly clear: ……
The Man Child of the Book of Revelation – Vol I: Part 1
Blessing= H1293 Barakah Blessings =H1293 Bire’koth / berâkâh
Bless H1288 Barak, Baruch
Barach Ata YHWH Our Aloahyim… Remember this phrase when we have our Sabbath meals: Barach Ata means EXTENTION Fortunate Well Off….
Berâkâh YHWH be with you and your family always..
YahnEl & Eyd Stephenson