20We are embassadors for another kingdom

We are Ambassadors of another Kingdom.

Many believers fail to figure out how to ‘put on the new man’ and to live successfully as believers, even after immersion. Many have tried in their exited days of being a new creation, but as time went on, they forgot and reincorporated their old ways of life. Even amongst Nazarene Israelite and other like-minded believers, compromise rules once-committed believers, who have lost their boundaries. Worldly ways still have a strong influence in the hearts of many. In fact many believers stopped with positional salvation; they believe that once they are saved, they are always saved. They believe their duty is over as long as they attend Sabbath services, and pray and read the Scriptures when they get time.

The idea that we are ambassadors of the Kingdom entails that we by example show the world what the kingdom of Elohim will be like. We ought to be better than we are – striving to improve the old self on an ongoing basis. Like Messiah was our example whilst He was on earth with mankind, we are to be a perfect example of what we will be like in the Kingdom. On Sabbath Days and during Feast Days, we should look forward to the kingdom of Elohim, not backward into our miserable lives and the way we used to keep Sunday and X-mas. Instead we should give our lives in service and obedience to Elohim, practicing righteousness and the give way of life – instead of the get way. We should study the Scriptures with a view to improve the self, on an ongoing basis. Repentance is a lifelong process. It is like looking into a mirror to see the dirt on our faces. When we see it we should remove it at once – when we discover a sin, we should get rid of it immediately, we should strive to clean up our lives continuously. We must remember that at Sabbath services and on Feast Days we come into the presence of Elohim, to worship Him and to learn from His word. As we ponder the reality of becoming a new creation, we begin to understand that Yahshua’s untainted blood was shed to atone for our sins. He gave His life for the salvation of the world. We read accordingly in Romans 5: 10, ‘For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to Elohim through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.’ This means that we should lose our previous way of life on earth and become a class of people who migrate to the next dimension of living. Rav Shaul puts it as follows in Galatians 2: 20: “I have been crucified with Messiah; and it is no longer I who live, but Messiah lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of Elohim, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Rav Shaul explains how our impalement was already accomplished by Yahshua in the initial salvation act. Through the cross we become partakers of the promise, in that we have already been impaled with Messiah. It is already accomplished and we do not have to die over and over again. However, the problem is that our old self should remain dead.

We read in Galatians 5: 24, ‘Now those who belong to Messiah Yahshua have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’ All we have to do from now on is to make sure that our old nature remains dead and buried far from our present actions. Just like those who passed Yahshua on the cross and hurled abuse at Him saying in Mark 15: 30, ‘save Yourself, and come down from the cross’, so our carnal nature shouts at us to come down from the cross. However, we need to through the Set-apart Spirit control our sinful old nature. To allow the Set-apart Spirit to conduct His work of revealing the new creation in us; He unveils Messiah who now lives within us to obtain our destiny. Messiah now lives in resurrection power within us, helping us to be like Him in character and nature and to understand the power of on-going salvation. We read accordingly in Hebrews 7: 25, ‘Hence, also, He is able to save forever those who draw near to Elohim through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.’ Yahshua explained it in John 17: 11, saying: “And I am no more in the world; and yet they themselves are in the world.” Believers remain here living above this worldly society. We read further in John 17: 14, “I have given them Thy word; and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” We see in verse 15 that Yahshua did not ask that we be taken ‘out of the world’ or raptured away, but that we are kept from the evil one. We are separated out from the old self and that separation is what keeps us from the evil one. We become a new creation living in the world as ambassadors of the kingdom of Elohim. That means that we are no longer content with our worldly nature, or are tempted by the carnality of the worldly systems.

The new creation exhibits the Elohim kind of life that is in Yahshua, and not in the world. We should as much as possible demonstrate a life without sin. We walk in the same domain as Yahshua our Messiah did. Not of this world, establishing the kingdom of Elohim, on earth as it is in heaven. As ambassadors of the kingdom of Elohim, we live independently from the systems of the world, with new eternal principles and standards that govern our lives. We live in the world in order to salvage the world, but we are not of the world. Yahshua became our example of being a first fruit living in the world, but not of it. We, who are, as it were first fruits among His creatures, should follow His perfect example. We read about Yahshua in Titus 2: 14, ‘who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.’ Back in John 17 verse 18 we read: “As thou didst send Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.” As a new creation, Yahshua sent us to display a new nature and the likeness of Messiah into the world. When we separate ourselves from worldly ways, YHVH will receive us as we read in 2 Corinthians 6: 16 & 17: ‘Or what agreement has the temple of Elohim with idols? For we are the temple of the living Elohim; just as Elohim said, “I WILL DWELL IN THEM AND WALK AMONG THEM; AND I WILL BE THEIR ELOHIM, AND THEY SHALL BE MY PEOPLE. (17) Therefore, COME OUT FROM THEIR MIDST AND BE SEPARATE,” says YHVH. “AND DO NOT TOUCH WHAT IS UNCLEAN; And I will welcome you.”’ These promises of YHVH remain for those that maintain a lifestyle, even though in the world, separate from the ways of the world. This is how we show the people in the world, the example Messiah showed His disciples, whilst He lived here about two thousand years ago.

We know that ultimately YHVH our Elohim wants to come and dwell with us on earth, in the New Jerusalem, that will come down from heaven, as we read in Revelation 21: 1 – 3, as follows: ‘And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away, and there is no longer any sea. (2) And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from Elohim, made ready as a bride adorned for her husband. (3) And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of Elohim is among men, and He shall dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and Elohim Himself shall be among them.”’ To explain the notion of us being ambassadors from a different perspective, let us consider the Jewish people and by extension us as part of the sect of the Nazarenes (Acts 24: 5 & 14), who follow the Hebrew Calendar. Nazarene Israelites often criticize our Jewish brothers for having two ‘Beginnings’ or ‘Heads of the year’. To clarify the subject discussed up to now, as well as giving us a better understanding of the two ‘Beginnings’ found in the Hebrew calendar, I present the following insight from a Jewish origin: We are all aware of the fact that our Jewish brothers have two ‘new years’ or ‘beginnings’; both beginnings are referred to as ‘heads’. The first one occurs in the Hebrew month of Tishrei known as Rosh Hashanah, while the second occurs during the month of Aviv and is designated as ‘the beginning of months.’

Jews accept two different, but distinct ways of life, each with its own beginning. The ‘Head of the Year’ that we are all familiar with, is the one on which we blow the Shofar and pray for a healthy and successful year. In addition for us as Nazarene Israelites it pictures the day on which Yahshua will return and when the first fruits will be resurrected. According to our Jewish brothers, the ‘head of the year’ on the first of Tishrei is the anniversary of Elohim’s creation of the universe and particularly His creation of Adam. On this day Jews reaffirm their commitment to YHVH as their Creator and King, and ask that He inscribed them in the book of life. Whereas the first of Tishrei is the first day of human history, the month of Aviv marks the birth of Israelite time. On the first of Aviv, approximately 2, 500 years after the creation of man, YHVH commanded His chosen people the fledgling nation of Israel – to leave the land of Egypt on the fifteenth day of the first month, in the evening, by the light of the full moon to start on a seven-week journey to Mount Sinai. Israelites share their status as citizens of Elohim’s world with all other races and creatures. As such, their ‘head of the year’ on the first of Tishrei is the birthday of man and the beginning of the natural world. However, the Israelite also inhabits another reality; a reality born of the super natural events of the Exodus, the splitting of the Red Sea, and the divine revelations at Sinai. This dimension of his life has its own ‘head’ – the miraculous month of Aviv.

The world and its history remained more or less the same for the two and a half thousand years. The Torah records miracles and super natural events before the exodus, but these are exceptions, temporary departures on the part of YHVH from His normal manner of running the world in accordance with the pre-defined laws of nature. The Exodus, on the other hand, produced the Israelite, a being whose very existence is an ongoing miracle. This is why when YHVH revealed Himself at Sinai He said: “I am YHVH your Elohim, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Would it not have been more appropriate, for YHVH to introduce Himself as the creator of the heavens and the earth? Is not the fact that we owe our very existence to YHVH more significant than the fact that He took us out of Egypt? But YHVH as the creator of the heavens and the earth, YHVH as the author of nature, is the Elohim that Israel shares with the rest of creation. At Sinai, however, YHVH did not speak to us as the Elohim of creation, but as the Elohim of the Exodus. At Sinai, a new chapter was opened in divine-human relations as YHVH and the people of Israel committed themselves to a relationship that does not recognize the dictates of convention and normalcy. If the Torah is the document that outlines our mandate as a people un-constricted by the laws of nature and history, of what relevance are the events of the pre-Exodus era? And even if they are of historical and educational value, should the Torah begin with these accounts? However, the Torah does not begin with the command given, on the first of Aviv, but with the creation of the world on the first of Tishrei. Our covenant with YHVH, though a product of the Exodus, has its roots in the soil of Tishrei. Indeed, the Exodus itself also has its beginnings in the month of Tishrei: the Talmud notes that the process of our liberation from Egypt began on the first of Tishrei, when the hard labor imposed upon our forefathers by the Egyptians ceased six months before they actually left Egypt.

The reverse is also true: the creation of the natural world on Tishrei has its origins in the month of Aviv. The Jewish sages tell us that while the physical world was created in the six days that culminate in the first of Tishrei, the idea of creation was birthed six months earlier, on the first of Aviv. In other words, the natural and the miraculous time-systems are mutually interconnected, each serving as the basis for the other. As Israelites, we follow both cycles, spanning both worlds. On the one hand, even the most natural aspects of our lives are predicated upon the miraculous, and are saturated with a norm-surpassing vision. On the other hand, our most miraculous achievements are grounded in the natural reality. For our mission in life can be achieved only by inhabiting both worlds – only by being a part of the natural world and, at the same time, rising above it to transcend its strictures and limitations. Our mission in life is to transform the very nature of reality, to build ‘A dwelling for YHVH in the lower realms.’ This is the purpose of His creation and the creation of all the worlds – that we transform the natural, material world which, by its nature, conceals the face of its Creator into an environment receptive to the divine truth, into a place in which the goodness and perfection of YHVH is at home and is the dominant reality. But here is the irony, a seemingly closed logical circle: we ourselves are part of this ‘lower realm’; we are to transform, or are we a step above it? If we are part of the material world, how can we change it and uplift it? A prisoner cannot release himself from prison, if he himself is restricted by its parameters; from where might he derive his ability to replace them? On the other hand, if we are, in essence, transcendent beings, existing beyond the confines of the natural reality, then whatever effect we have upon the world cannot truly be considered ‘a dwelling for YHVH in the lower realms.’ For the world as such has not been transformed; it has only been overwhelmed by a superior force. The true meaning of ‘a dwelling in the lower realms’ is that the lowly realms themselves change, from within.

So to achieve His aim in creation for a dwelling in the lower realms, YHVH created the Israelite, a fusion of the Tishrei and Aviv realities. For only in incorporating both these time-cycles in our lives, combining a norm-defying approach with a natural-pragmatic approach are we able to achieve deliverance of ourselves and our world. Only by drawing from above to change from within can we make our world a home for YHVH. Yes, the Passover during the month of Aviv is a new beginning for all of us, but the Feast of Trumpets (or Rosh Hashanah) during the month of Tishrei, will be another new beginning when Yahshua our Messiah will begin to rule the world to come (Olam Haba) during the seventh Millennium since the creation of man. We should therefore continue to strive to become a better, more Set-apart people, to be true ambassadors of the world to come; an example to the world of what the people in the kingdom of Elohim should be like.