Growing In God with Gary Hargrave

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #324
Title: Remove the Filthy Garments
 
Web Description: Christ is our atonement. He took away our sins at the cross. That means we are delivered from the accusations of satan. These accusations are about things that are not us but instead are put on us like filthy garments. By our love and faith, we remove the filthy garments from one another and replace them with the clean robes that God has provided for His priesthood in His Kingdom.
 
Show Notes: The Day of Atonement is about God removing our sin. God does this for us through the sacrifice of Christ. Just as the sins of the people were transferred to the Azazel goat and removed from the camp, so Christ took our sins and removed them at the cross. Everything about our salvation and deliverance from sin comes from God alone. It is not something we can do for each other. Yet there is an aspect of atonement that requires our involvement.
 
Zechariah gives an account of Joshua the high priest standing before the Lord in filthy garments. Meanwhile, satan is right there to accuse him. Then the Lord tells those who are nearby to remove the filthy garments from Joshua. And the Lord says, "I have taken your iniquity away from you and will clothe you with festal robes." Others then clothe Joshua with clean garments. In this amazing picture we see that God takes away our iniquity, but others are involved in removing the filthy garments and putting on clean ones.
 
We must see ourselves in this picture. In our love and faith and oneness, we play a role in delivering one another from the filthy garments of the flesh. Satan is always trying to corrupt us, taint us, cover us over, and make us look and act like him. But we are not that; we are the pure gold and silver that God created, which He is purifying in the refining fire. In this purifying process that God puts us through, we are actively involved in removing the dross that is covering over the pure gold that is our brother and sister.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Leviticus 16:1–28. "The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities."
•       Zechariah 3:1–5. "Joshua was clothed with filthy garments. … So they put a clean turban on his head and clothed him with garments."
•       1 Corinthians 15:33. "Do not be deceived: 'Bad company corrupts good morals.'"
•       Matthew 13:24–25. "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field."
•       Malachi 3:1–3. "He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver."
•       Matthew 24:3. "Because lawlessness is increased, most people's love will grow cold."
•       Daniel 12:10. "Many will be purged, purified and refined."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "Visualize a tsunami, seeing the globe of the Earth hanging out in the darkness of the universe and a tsunami of God's light and love, which is His salvation and atonement, coming and just encompassing the whole globe."
•       "There is a will of God in your life. And He planted you here as His good seed to accomplish His purposes and to spread His Word and to bring forth His Kingdom in the earth."
•       "Revelation talks about us standing with white robes. But we don't put those white robes on ourselves. It's our friends standing around who are going to be able to clothe us in those white robes as we move into the days of His Kingdom."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    Our salvation, deliverance from sin, and atonement only come from God. But we have a role in removing the filthy garments from one another, as well as clothing one another with clean garments.
2.    We tend to identify ourselves with the filthy garments. And satan is always accusing us to make us think that we are the sin. But all our sin, impurity, and uncleanness was transferred onto Christ who takes it away. 
3.    Tares planted by the enemy generate corruption. And the filthiness of the flesh is the dross that comes to the surface when gold is smelted. But we are not the corruption of the tares; we are the good seed that God planted. And we are not the dross; we are the pure gold that God created.

Growing In God Podcast
Title: Our Hunger and Thirst for God
 
Web Description: When Yeshua (Jesus) received the Holy Spirit, He was immediately led by the Spirit into the wilderness. It is the same for us when we receive the Holy Spirit. We are led into a wilderness experience so that we will know that our fulfillment comes only from the Lord. If we are hungry, we feed on Him. If we are thirsty, then we go to Him and drink. And out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water. 
 
Show Notes: Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is observed by building a Sukkah. This is done to remember how the children of Israel lived in the wilderness for forty years. During those forty years, the Lord led them and provided everything for them. In the wilderness there was no water except the water God provided. There was no food except the food God provided. There was nothing they could depend on except God. And this is the lesson of the wilderness for us as well.
 
You can go through times in your life when you feel like you are in a wilderness, when things have dried up for you spiritually. You are hungering and thirsting, but there is nothing in the wilderness that can satisfy you. That is for a reason. God wants you in a place where it is only you and He, where there is nothing for you to reach for except Him, where you can learn to depend wholly on Him, just as Christ did when He said that He could do nothing without the Father.
 
It was on the last day, the Great Day of the Feast of Tabernacles that Yeshua proclaimed, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink." That is how rivers of living water will flow from us. But He also said this concerning the Holy Spirit. And just as the Holy Spirit drove Yeshua into the wilderness, so He does with us. The Spirit positions us in that place of hunger and thirst for God so that His living waters can constantly flow from us. That is the greatest answer we can have for ourselves and for the world.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       John 15:19. "The Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing."
•       Deuteronomy 8:1–11. "You shall remember all the way which the LORD your God has led you in the wilderness."
•       Deuteronomy 8:15–17. "He led you through the … wilderness … to do good for you in the end."
•       John 7:37–39. "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink."
•       Mark 1:9–13. "Immediately the Spirit impelled Him to go out into the wilderness."
•       Jeremiah 29:13–14. "You will … find Me when you search for Me with all your heart."
•       John 3:34. "For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God; for He gives the Spirit without measure."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "God is working with us to do good to us, to bring the blessings and the promises to us, which He's promised to our fathers, which He promised to Israel, which He's promised through Yeshua."
•       "The greatest answer the world could have right now is a spiritual hunger. It's a spiritual thirst. Because if we can truly see a world that gets hungry and thirsty for God, we can see a world that can be saved."
•       "The Spirit doesn't come and go. It rested upon Yeshua and never left Him. It drove Him into the wilderness, and He had His wilderness experience. But we know that was the making of the Son of God. Certainly, He'll do nothing less for us."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    The wilderness experience is about God removing everything except Himself in our relationship with Him, in order that we can be multiplied, learn to live in Him, and possess what He has sworn to us and our forefathers.
2.    The world with all its technology does not have a solution for the wilderness it is in. There is only one solution! Hunger and thirst after God and pursue Him with all your heart. Only He has the answer for all the things you need.
3.    When we come to the Lord and drink, the Holy Spirit begins to flow out of us and drive us into the wilderness, which increases our thirst for Him so that it may continually increase until the Spirit flows from us without measure.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #322
Title: Today We Changed the World
 
Web Description: Do you believe you can change the world? Most people, if they are honest, would say, "No." But the more we read the Scriptures, the more we realize that changing the world is exactly what God wants us to do. It is not by our own ability, however. Christ's authority has already judged satan and cast him out of heaven. And with the force of our spirits, we envision God's will happening on earth just as it has happened in heaven.
 
Show Notes:
According to Matthew 16, whatever we bind on earth has already been bound in heaven, and whatever we loose on earth has already been loosed in heaven. We see the perfect illustration of this in Revelation 12. By the authority of the risen Christ who is at the right hand of the Father, we see satan bound and thrown out of heaven. Now we can see ourselves doing the same thing here on earth. We can visualize ourselves binding satan by the authority of Christ and kicking him out of the earth.
 
We see many problems in the world that we know are caused by satanic forces. But do we really see ourselves as the ones who bind those forces by the authority of Christ and change things by our agreement, just as Yeshua (Jesus) commanded? Are you concerned about a problem in the world or in your life? Then use your imagination to visualize the promises in God's Word overpowering that problem and replacing it with His perfect will. A specific problem right now is the way the media, under the control of satan, is filling the world with lies. So visualize the truth of God like a tsunami sweeping away those lies of satan. Then agree together to see that fully manifested in the earth.
 
In a recent Fellow Workers Zoom call, which was recorded for this podcast, we did just that. We focused on specific issues, exercising our imagination with the force of our spirits to see the removal of the satanic forces behind each problem. As you listen to this podcast, participate by exercising your own spiritual imagination when different issues are addressed. There will be a one-minute pause after each issue is discussed. Use that time to visualize the will of God being done in the situation. Practice this on your own as well. Keep your spirit engaged with what God wants to do in the earth.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Matthew 18:19–20. "If two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them."
•       2 Corinthians 10:3–5. "The weapons of our warfare are … divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses."
•       Habakkuk 2:13. "The earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, as the waters cover the sea."
•       Isaiah 28:17. "Hail will sweep away the refuge of lies and the waters will overflow the secret place."
•       Matthew 16:19. "Whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven."
•       Revelation 12:9. "Satan … was thrown down to the earth."
•       Matthew 13:40–41. "Just as the tares are gathered up and burned with fire, so shall it be at the end of the age. The Son of Man will send forth His angels."
•       Psalms 2:4–6. "He who sits in the heavens laughs, the Lord scoffs at them."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "Whatever you can imagine with your will behind it is what your spirit does."
•       "Imagine humanity on the earth right now being set free from all deception, all division, all anger, all hatred, all satanic influence because truth, like a tsunami, covers the earth as the waters cover the sea, and the lies of satan are swept away."
•       "We see ourselves finishing this job by knowing that satan and his angels have been defeated and are not strong enough. And we bind them, and we cast them out of our atmosphere."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    Use your imagination to visualize everything Christ accomplished in heaven as displacing everything satan is doing on the earth.
2.    We bind on earth whatever has already been bound in heaven. In other words, we are not inventing things. We specifically bind that which the Lord has bound in heaven.
3.    Humans always try to bring their agendas through government. But God laughs at their plans and installs His King. He installs into government those whom He chooses, those who will bring forth His purposes and His Kingdom on the earth.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #321
 
Title: Love God With All Your Heart
 
Web Description: The biblical feasts are a divine time in which we can break through into things that are available to us. Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, is one of those times. As we finish Sukkot this year, let us do it with a drive of spirit that says we will walk with God, we will obey His Word, and we will love Him with all our hearts and souls. We can do this because His provision and equipping have enabled us.
 
Show Notes: The Feast of Tabernacles is a time to celebrate the preparation God has for us in this life, just as Israel observed the feast as a remembrance of their preparation in the wilderness. A major aspect of that preparation was the Lord commanding His people to love Him with all their heart, with all their soul, and with all their might. He also told them, "This commandment is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach." God was not commanding them to do something that He was not also enabling them to do.
 
Now apply this to yourself as a believer in Christ today. John reminds us that we do not have a new commandment. It is the same commandment we have heard from the beginning. We know that we are to love the Lord with all our heart and love our neighbor as ourselves, but obeying that sometimes seems too difficult or out of reach. We need this realization that if God tells us to do something, He also equips us and enables us to do it.
 
Therefore, we cannot continue making excuses for not loving God and observing His commandments to us, especially in these days in which we live. There is an urgency on this age to obey God, just as He commanded Israel to do. So as you continue to celebrate this great Feast of Tabernacles, I encourage you to reach in with an even greater faith that God will enable you to love Him with all your heart in order to please Him and be capable of performing the works that He has prepared for us.
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Deuteronomy 30:5–8. "God will circumcise your heart … to love the LORD your God with all your heart."
•       Deuteronomy 30:9–14. "This commandment … is not too difficult for you, nor is it out of reach."
•       Deuteronomy 30:15–20. "I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live."
•       2 John 1:4–6. "This is the commandment, just as you have heard from the beginning."
•       Leviticus 19:18. "You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
•       Romans 10:6–8. "THE WORD IS NEAR YOU, IN YOUR MOUTH AND IN YOUR HEART."
•       Deuteronomy 6:4–13. "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might."
•       Jeremiah 31:33. "I will put My law within them and on their heart I will write it."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "God doesn't command you to do something that He doesn't also equip you and enable you to do."
•       "We can do this. He's putting it in our heart. He's putting the words of faith in our mouth that we may speak them into existence."
•       "This promise comes not because you say, 'I'm saved,' and you go on and live your life in some other way. It comes because we literally live a life in which we love the Lord our God with all of our heart, and we obey His voice."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    This is not out of reach for us. We can do this. We can come into the reality of loving the Lord with all our heart and with all our soul. This Word is near us. It is in our mouths and in our hearts that we may observe it.
2.    There are Words that He has commanded us. There are the Words that He has put upon our hearts. And we have to stop saying, "This is too difficult for us." It is not too difficult. God has made it possible.
3.    Let us celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in such a way that we come out of it living in days of life and prosperity, and we walk away from the age of death and adversity.

Growing In God Podcast
Program Number: GIG #320
Title: The Feast of Tabernacles – An Introduction
 
Web Description: Imagine the Kingdom of God on this earth: a time when the presence of God is always with us and leading us, when knowledge and understanding of His Word is always available, when there is no disease and people have all the food they need. Well, the Feast of Tabernacles is a remembrance of the time when the children of Israel experienced all those things in the wilderness. We pray, "Thy kingdom come on earth." But through Tabernacles, God can show us exactly what that means.
 
Show Notes: How important is the Feast of Tabernacles to us as Christians? All the biblical feasts have relevance for us, but the Feast of Tabernacles is particularly significant to the days we are living in now. Of all the feasts, Tabernacles is the only time the Lord commanded the children of Israel to include the servants and strangers and others living in their towns. It points to the time of His Kingdom when those who were formally strangers and aliens are included, and the earth is filled with the knowledge of the Lord (Habakkuk 2:14).
 
The observance of this feast involves living in simple booths for seven days. This was to remind the children of Israel of the time they lived in tents as they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. We usually think of the wilderness as a time when God's dealings are on us or negative things are taking place surrounding us. But the Feast of Tabernacles is about being all together joyful, about celebrating the harvest, about God reminding them, "When you were in the wilderness, I was with you."
 
During this Feast of Tabernacles, study the Scriptures about it. Learn how it has been celebrated and the events that transpired during the feast, both in the history of Israel and in the life of Christ. It will give you something not just to remember, but to look forward to. Use your imagination and picture in your mind what those days in the wilderness would have been like when the presence of the Lord was always with them protecting them, leading them, instructing them, and providing for them. Wait on the Lord and say, "Show me, Lord. What are these days of Tabernacles? And what do they hold in store for us as believers today?"
 
Key Verses:
 
•       Leviticus 23:34–44. "You shall live in booths for seven days."
•       Deuteronomy 16:13–17. "You shall rejoice in your feast."
•       Deuteronomy 31:10–13. "At the end of every seven years … you shall read this law in front of all Israel."
•       1 Kings 8:2–6. "At the feast … the priests brought the ark of the covenant of the LORD to its place."
•       2 Chronicles 5:1–7. "Then all the elders of Israel came, and the Levites took up the ark."
•       Ezra 3:1–6. "They celebrated the Feast of Booths, as it is written."
•       Nehemiah 8:13—9:3. "The entire assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in them."
•       John 7:2–14. "When it was now the midst of the feast Jesus went up into the temple, and began to teach."
•       John 7:37–39. "From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water."
•       Matthew 6:10. "Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven."
•       John 18:36. "My kingdom is not of this world."
•       Romans 8:14. "All who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God."
•       Isaiah 11:9. "The earth will be full of the knowledge of the LORD."
 
Quotes:
 
•       "We see some of these tremendous advantages of this time in the wilderness that only existed for Israel or on the earth during this time."
•       "God is saying, 'I want you to remember this time because I'm going to bring My Kingdom to this earth.'"
•       "This Feast of Tabernacles is the feast of His presence on the earth, and let us believe to see the glory of the Lord fill all the earth at this wonderful time of Tabernacles."
 
Takeaways:
 
1.    This feast is referred to as Sukkot, the Feast of Booths, or the Feast of Tabernacles. And one of the great titles for this feast is the Feast of the LORD. This indicates how important this time is; we are to spend it with the Lord.
2.    In our Christian mindset, we often think of the wilderness as a negative experience. But the reality is that there are many aspects of the wilderness experience that describe the experience of God's Kingdom on earth.
3.    Isaiah tells us that "the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea." And it was during Tabernacles that Yeshua (Jesus) prophesied that out of us will flow rivers of living water. So Tabernacles is about the presence of God, the knowledge of God, and the understanding of God that will flow into the earth through the believers in Christ.