SEARCH ME
Shalom, I’m Rabbi Eric Walker and welcome to Through the Lens.
When we have a problem at home with our plumbing and our drain backs up and overflows. We don’t try and pour more water in to the overflowing drain because it can’t receive what it already has. We reach for a variety of remedies Plungers, Draino & Liquid Plumber, Roto- Rooter and finally the plumber. I have found that it is much cheaper for me to call the plumber first than to try and fix it myself and then pay for a complete bathroom renovation to fix what I broke. We go through a process of trying to identify the source of the blockage and then use a variety of methods to clear the blockage.
Over the course of my life as a Believer I have been called upon to pray for people.
This especially occurs when I am speaking at a conference or a retreat or even at a revival. The most common request I have had in prayer lines was to pray for people to receive more of G-D. WHAT? What more can you receive? Why are you asking for more when He already gave you everything? If you aren’t really feeling it, flowing in it, bearing fruit for the kingdom there must be something blocking it. As I began to talk to people in my prayer line, I would ask them what was blocking them? Some were indignant and assured me there was nothing and even one became so offended she had a hard time receiving the Word given to me for her prayer requests. She looked me squarely in the eyes and you could see she was not happy. I told her after to come to my class the next day. She came and afterward told me just how much my questions and prayer bothered her the night before and how during the teaching G-D revealed to her what was blocking her. She released it and immediately the Holy Spirit washed over her and she began to receive.
G-D is calling us to search ourselves and cry out to him like King David in Psalm 139
Ps 139 O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. 2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. 3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. 4 Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord. 5 You hem me in — behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me. 6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain. 7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? 8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. 9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, 10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. 11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” 12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. 13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth 16 your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be. 17 How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you. 19 If only you would slay the wicked, O God! Away from me, you bloodthirsty men! 20 They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. 21 Do I not hate those who hate you, O Lord, and abhor those who rise up against you? 22 I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. 23 Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. 24 See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.
Prov 20:27 The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man; it searches out his inmost being.
What will God find when he searches your heart? I have seen too many that claim to be believers but embrace every worldly indulgence. Is this behavior a witness to those who are watching you? Do you think me legalistic if I say that we are to conduct ourselves in a manner that does not conform to the standards of man, but is in alignment with the Word of God? If we ask the Lord to search out hearts what exactly will He find? Do you not know what the Word says, Friendship with the world is hatred toward God. Could it be that those compromises that have been made have separated you from God’s will for your life and the blockage to your prayers being answered is self-created?
Jer 17:10 10 “I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve.”
How much clearer can the message be that God sees our conduct and rewards us accordingly.
Ezek 34:11-16 “‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. 12 As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. 13 I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. 14 I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. 15 I myself will tend my sheep and have them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. 16 I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
Rom 8:27-39 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. 30 And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified. 31 What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all — how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33 Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is He that condemns? Messiah Yeshua, who died — more than that, who was raised to life — is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Messiah? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: “For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Messiah Yeshua our Lord.
We spend too little time looking within and coming face to face with the areas in our lives that do not reflect the image of Messiah. We are instructed in Romans 12:2 “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Is it better to go along with the crowd and please man or stand firm in your faith and bear witness through your actions the image of Messiah? God does not want to rob you of any joy, He wants to be the source of that joy and have a wholesome and right relationship with those who have accepted His gift of salvation. It is time to ask ourselves what does God see when he searches our hearts and do our hearts line up with our actions? If your prayers are not being answered and God has gone silent it is time to ask What am I doing that is blocking my walk?
And that my friends is this week’s edition of Through the Lens. Follow us on FB, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube and visit ignitinganation.com for the remaking guest lineup and an updated list of teachings including the New Prophecy Class that starts on June 8. Please address all comments or questions to me rabbieric@ignitinganation.com. Please consider supporting our ministry through the donate button on our website. Until we see you next time in person or online, we bid you Shalom.