Hebrew Roots Worshiping God in Spirit and in Truth

Let’s reflect upon the topic of worshiping Abba in Spirit and in Truth as it relates to our Hebrew Roots Faith. This will be part 3 of my multi-episode series on operating and walking out this walk in the Spirit. If you’ve not already done so, I would humbly ask you to check out Sabbath Thoughts and Reflections episodes 78 and 79 where I lay some of the ground work for this episode.

In Spirit and in Truth

I would submit that probably the biggest hurdle that most of us have to work through in this Faith of ours is the age-old battle that exists between the physical and the spiritual. Master, when speaking to the Samaritan woman at the well, presented to her one the most profound bits of vital information ever given to mankind on this planet. Yet that “bit of information”–as vital and essential as it is–has either been grossly misused because of gross misunderstanding, or it has been completely ignored because of complacency and or misinterpretations by some of our Bible teachers. The statement and information I’m referring to is found in John’s Gospel and reads as follows:

“God is a Spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:24; KJV)

Now, I ask you: how much attention has been given to this crucial instruction and revelation? Who and how many teachers dare to tackle the what’s and the how’s of this essential truth, especially in Hebrew Roots? Our cousins in Christianity, especially our charismatic friends, love this and related passages. Why? Because it fundamentally embodies the charismatic mindset that everything having to do with God and Bible is spiritual. You see, we in Hebrew Roots have gone way too far over to the Torah side of things while the Charismatics have gone way too far over to the spiritual side of things. In both the Hebrew Roots and Charismatic side of things, we’re guilty of severely neglecting the other side of the equation: the Charismatics the Torah and the Hebrew Rooters the spiritual. And the funny thing about this dilemma is that the Charismatics have gone so far over to the spiritual end of the spectrum that they have essentially created an entirely independent religion that is not biblically supported in many aspects. While we in Hebrew Roots, we have gone so far over to Torah that we, in many many cases, have become pharisaic or rabbinic in appearance and practice.

The key point of this whole thing that I believe we must take into consideration is that Spirit and Truth must go together. In fact, the two are inseparable, especially as it relates to our worship of and relationship with the Almighty. Going back over to my Charismatic–Hebrew Roots comparison: the Charismatics must bring into their lifestyle Truth–Biblical Truth; while we Hebrew Rooters must bring into our lifestyle the spiritual. I would say that we are, in at least one aspect, no better than some of charismatic/fundamentalist cousins as it relates to relationship with and worship of Abba Father.

Bias Against the Holy Spirit

I’ve never really given much credence or attention to the story of the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well until just recently. Prior to my recent examination of this story and it’s tremendous implications to our individual and collective walks in Messiah, I saw this story as simply our Master revealing Himself to a Gentile woman and an example of how our Faith must overcome racism in the world through the Gospel message. And yes, I’ve read many times over the years the verse that talks about God being a Spirit and us worshiping Him in Spirit and in Truth. But I always sort of just read over it and never gave it much thought, especially after coming into Hebrew Roots. Why is that? Well, my early years in this Faith movement were met with teachings and warnings against spirituality–especially anything having to do with the Holy Spirit.

It wasn’t until I began listening to some of Arthur Bailey’s teachings that I began to realize that it is vital that every believer–every disciple of Yeshua Messiah–walk and operate in the Spirit. I began to see for myself that there was an ingrained cultural bias against everything and anything having to do with the Ruach Kodesh (the Holy Spirit). An overwhelming number of Hebrew Rooters simply reject the workings of the Holy Spirit in one form or another. It’s not that they don’t believe the Ruach Kodesh exists, it’s that they don’t want anything to do with speaking in tongues, healings, praying in the Spirit and talk and teachings on this subject. And I’ll be honest with you: I was right there with them early on in my walk.

But then at the end of the day, this and other related passages on the subject of operating in the Ruach (the Spirit) don’t go away. Oh, many in our Faith community will explain them away as being the Spirit of God operating in the world and making things happen in accordance with the will of Yah; that we don’t need to worry about the Holy Spirit; that all we need to worry about is obeying and keeping Torah–keeping the Feast Days–keeping the Sabbath–not eating pork–making sure we don’t interact with those Christians–supporting the big Hebrew Roots ministries with our tithes and offerings–attend those dry and boring Hebrew Roots Conferences from time-to-time–buy the latest teachings of various Messianic Torah teachers, and the likes. Essentially, we are encouraged not to operate independently in the Spirit and, for that matter, not fulfill our calling and commission as disciples of Yeshua Messiah–unless the various ministries sanction it.

I attended a Michael Rood Conference in the fall of 2015, and during a round table session, one of the conference attendees asked Michael Rood: if something were to happen to him, what in the world should we do? How will we function? What are we to do? Oh my, oh my, the sky is about to fall down upon us! Save us Michael Rood! I was sensitive to this brother’s concerns, but I was concerned that this believer’s concerns were indicative of a much greater problem in our community and movement: that we are nothing more than followers of men and ministries–that our individual and collective walks and our talks and our worldviews are so shallow and lacking true substance; that we need a man to tell us how and when to breathe, walk, talk, use the restroom, eat, pray, read our bibles, etc.

I was encouraged at the reply that Micheal gave this gentleman: Michael essentially told him that he must never base the future of his or anyone else’s walk on him and his ministry; that we are individuals who must operate in our individual callings; and that we must prepare ourselves for our respective ministries. I thought that was a pretty good response to a rather concerning question.

Clearly, there are many in our Faith community who are just like this gentleman–basing their entire walk on individual Hebrew Roots teachers and ministries. Oh, there’s nothing wrong with following the teachings of Abba’s anointed–in fact we are encouraged to hearken to the teachings of those whom Father sends–Romans 10:14, 15. Nevertheless, our trust and our sustenance must come solely from the Almighty. We are not to place our spiritual trust in men, but trust Yahuah our Elohim (Proverbs 29:25; Psalm 146:3; Psalm 118:8). It is the Spirit of Yahuah that leads, guides, and empowers us to do that which we are commissioned to do, not man.

All too often, and I’ve seen this in my own life growing up in the Baptist Church, we place so much reliance upon our pastors, preachers and teachers that we begin to worship them and to place them and their teachings and doctrines above that of even Abba Father. It’s a shame to see. And I can attest that this sort of worship of men comes along so subtly at first that most of us don’t even realize that we have fallen into man/teacher worship. And before you know it, we become just like that dude at the Rood Conference who was fretting that we as a community would be without a shepherd if something were to happen to Michael Rood. I guess, it’s expected. We pour so much of our souls and our trust and our finances into some of these ministries and teachers. Some of these teachers teach us how to think and see the world about us through their particular mindsets and we begin to conform to the image of the ministries we follow, instead of conforming to the image of our Master Yeshua HaMashiyach as true disciples would be expected to do.

I believe that’s why it’s so important that we embrace the power and might and leading of the Ruach Kodesh in our lives so that our focus is upon Abba and His will for us.

The Samaritan Woman and Yeshua–A Story of Transition

The Samaritan Woman and Yeshua at Jacob’s Well

I now see from the story of the Samaritan Woman, a a classic reminder and lesson of how the flesh, religion and culture, all work in concert to enslave us and keep us from ever having a true and substantive relationship with the Creator of the Universe. I further see from this story a warning to us in Hebrew Roots that if we’re not careful, we will find ourselves in a similar situation as that of the Samaritan woman–isolated from the world around us; ineffective in our witness of the true Faith; following doctrines of men; going through the motions of worship, but never truly understanding the God we profess to know or experiencing the true power and might of Yahuah in our lives.

The woman in this story lived in a very challenging societal, religious and cultural construct–probably one of the most challenging that our Master had to deal with during His brief earthly ministry.

To begin with, the woman was a Samaritan, which put her at a particularly challenging disadvantage. She was a woman–second mark against her. She had been married and divorced five-times and was now likely shacking up with another fellow–mark three. I guess one would call her, in today’s pop-culture parlance, a “hot mess.”

Disagreements on Who and What Samaritans Were and Are Today

Several teachings have emerged over the years regarding who and what Samaritans were and are today. Michael Rood, in many of his teachings, as well as in his Chronological Gospels, classify the Samaritans as Gentiles. In fact, Michael has even developed a doctrine around the story of the Samaritan woman and her encounter with Master–that the two-days that He and his disciples spent in Samaria preaching the Gospel to the Samaritans, was a “prophetic picture of the time of the gentiles” as depicted in Leviticus 23:22. According to Michael, “…the time of the gentiles, the 2,000-year duration between the fulfillment of the Spring Feasts and the fulfillment of the Fall Feasts, is when the blindness “in part” that happened to Israel is accompanied by the opening of the eyes of the gentiles so that they can be properly grafted into the root of Israel and hopefully by bearing good fruit, they too will not be “cut off” as some of Israel was because of unbelief and blatant disobedience of the Torah.” (Rood, The Chronological Gospels, page 85)

Now, Michael is not alone in his contention that the Samaritans were and are gentiles. it is a common teaching and belief among orthodox and reformed Jews and I believe certain Messianics that the Samaritans were and are gentiles.

But is that belief and teaching accurate? Were and are the Samaritans gentiles in the classic sense of what we understand gentiles to be? I would challenge that contention and I believe there is biblical and extra-biblical support for my assertion that the Samaritans were not “gentiles” in the classical sense, but more so, they were actually of Israeli descent.

To begin with, Master told the Canaanite Woman, as recorded in Matthew 15:24, that

“I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Isra’el.”

So by Master spending two-days with the Samaritans, preaching and teaching the Gospel to them: was He in violation of His own stated agenda? If we were to abide by a “Samaritans are gentiles” teaching and doctrine, then I would say yes. But I don’t believe Master would place His credibility on the line by hanging out and teaching the Gospel to Gentiles when He clearly stated that His mission was to the “lost sheep of the house of Israel.”

Secondly, biblical, extra-biblical and the stated history of the Samaritans themselves, support that the Samaritans were Jews, if not as Matthew Henry, Biblical Commentator, “mongrel Jews,” or more accurately, mongrel Hebrews. The Samaritans contend that they are descended from Ephraim and as we saw, the woman at the well went so far as to assert to Master that she identified herself as a descendant of Jacob. But Matthew Henry writes of the Samaritans:

“They were the posterity of the colonies which the King of Assyria planted there after the captivity of the 10-tribes (as noted in 2 Kings 17), with whom the poor of the land that were left behind, and many other Jews afterwards, incorporated themselves. They worshiped the God of Israel only, to whom they erected a temple on Mount Gerizim, in competition with that of Jerusalem.”

The Jews of course take issue with the Samaritans and their stated contention that are of Hebrew descent, and to a certain extent, the Jews have good reason for some of their biases against them–the main one being the Samaritan’s man-made religion that departs from Torah (John 4:20-22)

Master knew of the true identity of the Samaritans and thus He preached the Gospel to them over the course of two-days. Did this represent, as Michael teaches, a prophetic picture of the Gentile’s 2,000-years of grace, I don’t know; I doubt it actually. But what I do know, is that the story of the Samaritan was one of the first introductions of the concept of worshiping our Creator in both Spirit and Truth; a concept that Michael, in his chronology ignored.

Water and the Holy Spirit

I find it so apropos that Master would get into a debate with the Samaritan woman over the issue of the inappropriateness of our Master seeking to satisfy His thirst with her assistance. When this thing went down, something amazing took place; something earth shattering. Not only would Master use this awkward situation to introduce to the woman the way things were heading in terms of the worship of the One True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but Master would reveal his secret identity to the most reviled and rejected people in the community. Master would reveal to the woman, and subsequently to the other members of the Samaritan community, that yes, He was indeed the long awaited Messiah. He had not directly revealed His identity to any other group prior to this encounter. Yet He chose this unusual occasion in which to unveil to the world just who He truly was.

Master described water that was living and would satisfy our thirst forever.

Yes, in those two-brief days, a season of grace fell upon those Samaritans. It was indeed the day of their visitation. It was a day in which the Son of the Creator of the Universe, came to a people who had been rejected by their cousins for centuries, and received directly from the redeemer’s mouth the Gospel message that could freed from their cultural, religious and spiritual bondage.

Although racial and cultural biases ran rampant in the region during this time, Master had no problem in reaching out to those most in need of his message of freedom. The woman, recognizing that she was considered impure and unclean by her cousins the Jews, saw our Master’s outreach to her for a drink of water as nothing more than a joke and another potential insult to her and her community. One can only speculate how much abuse and bigotry she and her fellow Samaritans had endured over the course of their lifetimes. Thus, it is no wonder that her shields went immediately up when Master asked her for a drink of water.

The woman’s immediate response to the request for a drink from Jacob’s well was:

“How is it that You, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria? (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.).” (John 4:9; ESV)

It is a well accepted fact that the Jew’s considered the Samaritans ritually impure and unclean and that any Jew using a drinking vessel after a Samaritan touched it would become ceremonially unclean. (NET) Funny thing is, Master made it His life’s mission to overturn the man made rituals and doctrines of Judaism that served only to make the commandments of Yahuah of none effect. (Matthew 15:6) So when He was confronted by the Jewish established on numerous occasions, over the issue of why He did not follow the traditions of the so-called Fathers, Master would school and scold them over the fact that they were nothing more than a bunch of hypocrites. (Matthew 15:7) So Master was a bit of a revolutionary–a maverick if you will. No other Jew in His day would have done what Yeshua did in asking the woman for a drink of water, seizing upon the opportunity to minister to this woman. John records the Master’s disciples having a bit of a meltdown and experiencing a bit of confusion over this encounter:

“At this point His disciples came and they were amazed that he had been speaking with a woman, yet no one said, “What do you seek? or, “Why do You speak with her?” (John 4:27)

But praise be to Yahuah that Master was not afraid to challenge the cultural and religious norms and biases of His day. Otherwise, we would be in a world of hurt. The only reason we are where we are today is because of Master’s revolutionary stance.

So the woman called Master out on His behavior. I can only guess that Master’s reply to her call-out was something that she would never ever have expected to receive in her entire life. In fact, she probably thought, at first, that this was a crazy man. If such an encounter were to happen to any of us today, we’d probably gather our belongings and move along as quickly as we could, because most of us aren’t too keen on crazy. At least I’m not.

But Master seizes control of the conversation and begins to speak to things that don’t make any sense to the carnal mindset. He talks to her about Him being someone who is special and who has the ability to provide her “living water.” Crazy huh? Indeed. But the woman, like so many of us today, blinded by and enslaved by a fleshly mindset that can not see beyond the here and now; that can rationalize such talk of “living water;” that sees such talk as crazy talk. So the obvious response from the woman was carnal in nature. Her response brought the conversation immediately back down to the carnal–the Master didn’t have anything to fetch the water in and thus He was likely out of luck in getting water from her; and that, hey, you are no better than us–we’re all descendants of Jacob. (John 4:11, 12) So the woman was essentially waving Master off and telling Him to get a life.

Master brings the conversation back to the spiritual, lifting it from the carnal:

“…Everyone who drinks of this water will thirst again; but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” (John 4:13, 14; NAS)

As I was reading this passage, I became intrigued by the concept of “living water.” What is this “living water” that Master speaks of. The ESV identifies two-meanings to the phrase: (1) fresh spring, running water that we used in various Torah-directed purification rituals:

“He shall take the live bird with the cedarwood and the scarlet yarn and the hyssop and dip them and the live bird in the blood of the bird that was killed over the fresh water.” (Leviticus 14:6; ESV) Other passages include Deuteronomy 21:4 and Leviticus 14:50-52.

Interestingly enough, the concept of Baptism (or as popularly coined today in certain segments of our Faith, Mikveh), did not originate with John the Immerser. The concept of immersing one’s body in water–mind you, running, living water–hearkens back to Leviticus 15:13:

“And when the one with a discharge is cleansed of his discharge, then he shall count for himself seven days for his cleansing and wash his clothes. And he shall bathe his body in running water and shall be clean.”

Thus living water, also referred to as running water, bears with it the concept of one’s impurities being washed away and we becoming pure again. Such a thing is not possible with standing water. Thus when we contemplate baptism, we should seek out bodies of water that are running or living, so to speak. Of course, we do the best we can in this respect.

The second aspect of “living water” has to do with the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Ruach Kodesh, in each of us. John records the words of Master:

“Whoever puts his trust in me, as the Scripture says, rivers of living water will flow from his inmost being! (Now He said this about the Spirit whom those who trusted in Him were to receive later–the Spirit had not yet been given, because Yeshua had not yet been glorified.)” (John 7:38,39′ CJB)

And it is this aspect of “living water” that Master was speaking to the Samaritan woman about. The Bible Commentator Matthew Henry writes of this “living water”:

“Yeshua (my adjustment) gives us the living water if we but ask. He received it mightily from His Father (our Father) and thus He freely makes it available to us.” (Matthew Henry)

The one other aspect of this story that I want to also reflect upon is the incident at Horeb and Paul’s commentary on that incident and what it means to us as Netsarim. The event at Horeb may be found recorded in Exodus 17:1-6, and it reads:

“All the congregation of the people of Israel moved on from the wilderness of Sin by stages, according to the commandment of the LORD, and camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. Therefore the people quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.” And Moses said to them, “Why do you quarrel with me? Why do you test the LORD?” But the people thirsted there for water and the people grumbled against Moses and said, “Why did you bring us up out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?” So Moses cried to the LORD, “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” And the LORD said to Moses, “Pass on before the people, taking with you some of the elders of Israel, and take in your hand the staff with which you struck the Nile, and go. Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.” And Moses did so, in the sight of the elders of Israel. (ESV)

Paul seized upon this event from an amazing spiritual perspective–such that the event had tremendous prophetic significance to all of us. Paul wrote:

“…and they all drank the same drink from the Spirit–for they drank from a Spirit-sent Rock which followed them and that Rock was the Messiah.” (I Corinthians 10:4; CJB)

The tie in to our present story of the woman at the well in Samaria is that Master was offering the woman the gift of living water that only He was in a position to give her. Master Yeshua was likened to a rock–that rock in Horeb–strong–permanent–ageless–the source of lifesaving water that can change our lives forever. It’s unlike the physical water that we all need to sustain our physical life. It is the Ruach Kodesh, that stokes the fires within our very core and reveals, admonishes, convicts, reminds, encourages, emboldens, teaches and confirms us into the splitting image of our Master Yeshua Messiah. If that “living water”–that Spirit–that Master spoke to the woman at the well is actually dwelling within us, then we stand to never thirst again. Master told us:

“We who hunger and thirst after righteousness shall be filled.” (Matthew 5:6)

The Word is food, but it can’t sustain us alone. We need water–spiritual water–the Ruach Kodesh, to help us and sustain us. The woman, whom I believe still did not understand what Master was talking about, sought to take this conversation a bit further by asking him:

“Okay, I’ll bite: give me this water so I will not be thirsty nor come all the way here to draw.” (John 4:15; NAS)

It wasn’t because she was interested in receiving the gift of the Ruach Kodesh that the woman asked Master for the everlasting water, but she was simply tired of having to go down to the well to fetch water every day no doubt. Thus, Master still had not moved the woman from the carnal, as so many of us find ourselves today. So He sought to seize upon something within her that would get her attention and shake her to her very core, which would then afford her the opportunity to transition from the carnal to the spiritual. So he asked her to go and fetch her husband. As the story goes, and irrelevant to this reflection, Master used this very power–that living water–the Ruach Kodesh, to slice into the woman at the very place she lived–her personal life–her love life. Master has an uncanny way of finding the very thing in each our lives that He can exploit in order to get our attention.

As the story goes, she’d been married five-times and was likely shaking up with another fellow in one form or another. Whether all of her husbands died or she had been divorced from each of them five times, or a combination of both death and divorce, is not readily apparent here. Yet when we drill down to the heart of this matter, the issue is not divorce or remarriage or shacking up that Master was trying to get at. Her revealed marital history was just an opener to get this woman’s attention. It would seem that Master was saying to this woman and to us:

“Listen, I’m not just some schmuck, loony, nut case, trying to disrupt the cultural, religious status quo of our bankrupt, man made, Yah’less system. On the contrary, I am someone you never imagined you’d meet in this lifetime. Oh, you’ve heard about me, and so have all of the members of your community and all of your forefathers. Yet none of you have ever met me until this very moment in time. This is the time of your visitation my dear. Allow me to present my credentials to you just so there is no confusion as to whom I am. In fact, I’m going to provide you my credentials by simply telling you about your past and present marital life without ever having spoken to you or to have met you before. In other words, allow me to display for you and all your community, one of the aspects of my ministry, long ago foretold to you of me by Mosheh:

“Yahuah your Elohim will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers—it is to Him you shall shemah—just as you desired of Yahuah your Elohim at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, ‘Let me not hear again the voice of Yahuah my Elohim or see this great fire any more, lest I die.’” And Yahuah said to me, ‘They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in His mouth and He shall speak to them all that I command Him. And whoever will not listen to my words that He shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him.” (Deuteronomy 18:15-18; ESV, adjusted for Hebrew Roots)

Upon hearing of her past and present marital life from a man she’d never met before, she starts to realize that she is not having just some ordinary encounter with another kook off the street down by the watering hole. No indeed. This was something special. Something different. Something powerful This was some form of visitation unlike something she never imagined she would experience in her lifetime. A rare visitation from a prophet. But not just any ole prophet. Prophets were a shekel a dozen throughout the region during the first century of the common era and most of them were bona fide kooks trying to make a name for themselves, having no connection whatsoever with the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were essentially impostors and they would pray upon the most unsuspecting and ignorant of the community.

But recognizing and acknowledging to Master that he was a prophet of a particularly unique pedigree, she sought to take advantage of this opportunity by bringing up one of the most divisive issues separating Samaritans Jews from their Orthodox Jewish cousins: that being the issue of the place of worship being in Jerusalem versus Mount Gerizim. (verse 20)

Well, Master was more concerned about exploring with this woman and her community, the issue of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Yahuah than that of the supposed center of Jewish worship. But since she asked, Master wanted to quickly set the record straight: (1) your system of worship is not of Yahuah; (2) true worship of the Creator of the Universe is practiced by orthodox Jews. I, Yeshua, am an orthodox Jew and being an orthodox Jew, salvation comes from the orthodox Jewish system—not the Samaritan, Gentile-influenced system of man made religion—and certainly not the Pharisaic system. But since I’m here in Samaria speaking to you, let’s just get this one sticking point out of the way. Samaritan Judaism is a bunch of crock and always has been. (Verse 22)

Master continues on: But I will tell you this much: in just a short time, worship of Yahuah our Elohim, will not be based on the physical location of the worship center. (verse 21) You see, something is coming and something big is about to happen that will turn the religious world upside down on its head. Worship of the Creator of the Universe will take on a form unknown to man up to this point, but certainly foreseen and prophesied by some of Yahuah’s most anointed prophets of old. (Ezekiel 11; 36; Jeremiah 31) Worship is going to transition from that of rote-mechanical adherence to a set of ordinances, regulations and statutes; away from a physical location on this planet; over to the individual worshiper. (verse 23) No longer will the true worshiper of Yahuah be required to worship in any one location. There’s coming a day when the true worshiper can go into his or her closet and worship the Father directly, without need for all the trappings of a temple and the intercession of men acting as priest. Worship will transition from an outward show reverence and praise and petition and penitence to that of an inward, genuine show of love, reverence, peace, praise and the seeking of forgiveness. This new form of worship will be energized and driven by the Spirit of the Creator of the Universe that will be deposited into each worshiper’s heart, mind and soul. No longer will the worshiper have to seek forgiveness from the Creator by going through a frail, sinful man who offers up the life of an animal each time you sin. No longer will it be impossible for you resist sin which puts up a barrier between you and Abba. For Abba is going to perform a work in every genuine believer that will elevate him and her to a place where true worship can happen—not some dead, meaningless attempt at communing with the Creator. But true worship. Face to face with the Creator of the Universe.

No longer will someone have to write-up prayers for us to recite and vainly attempt to communicate with the Creator. No longer will we have to struggle blindly in the dark, reaching out to an illusive God, hoping to touch His Face, but never coming close enough to Him to do so. No longer will thousands of lambs, goats and bulls need be killed because you can’t stop sinning. No longer do you have to show up smelling like a fire sale before the nostrils of the Creator. You will be cleaned up, you will be able to commune with me on a level that makes the old way seem as though it never existed.

No doubt flummoxed by all that Master revealed to her, she sense that this prophet that sat before her at Jacob’s well was not just any prophet. This was a visitation unlike any she could ever conceive of. “Maybe all that which you’ve just spoken to me is true,” she responds to Master. “But it is well known that Mashiyach is coming some day. And when Mashiyach comes, He’s going to sort all this stuff out as it relates to the true place of worship of Yahuah. He will set everything straight.” (verse 25)

And this is where the story peaks: Yeshua says to her—My dear, who do you think you’re speaking to? It’s me! I’m Mashiyach. I’m the one you’re referencing. Yes, I’m here to set all things straight. Woman, rejoice. Indeed, this is the time of your visitation. Your life will never be the same from this point forward. (verse 26)

Stuck at the Base of Mount Sinai

When will we realize and embrace our visitation? When will we ever leave the base of Mount Sinai: struggling to understand the Creator of the Universe; haughty; stiff-necked; carnal; inwardly focused; stuck in the flesh; unable to live Torah the way Father always intended us to live it.

Friends, I believe we should have spiritually left Mount Sinai when Master Yeshua initiated the renewed covenant and ushered in the Gospel of the Kingdom. Yet, so many of us never left that mountain. We are stuck, focused on a mechanical, rote obedience to Torah less any power and workings of the Holy Spirit.

Master revealed to the Samaritan woman that because our Creator is a Spirit, it is essential that believers worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. What is Spirit? It’s the Spirit of the Most High, operating in our lives and molding our spirit to be in complete sync with the Spirit of Yahuah. The writer of Hebrews reiterated the prophecy that was given to the Prophet Jeremiah regarding the renewed covenant and it reads as follows:

“For finding fault with them, He says, “Behold, days are coming, says Yahuah, when I will effect a new covenant with the House of Israel and with the House of Judah; not like the covenant which I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; for they did not continue in my covenant, and I did not care for them, says Yahuah. For this is the covenant that I will make with the House of Israel after those days, says Yahuah: I will put my laws into their minds, and I will write them on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people. And they shall not teach everyone His fellow citizen and everyone His brother, saying, “Know Yahuah; for all will know me, for the least to the greatest of them. For I will be merciful to their iniquities and I will remember their sins no more.” (Hebrew 8:8-13; NAS adjusted)

This is speaking to the Houses of Judah and Israel specifically. However, we have ready access to the benefits of this renewed covenant whereby Abba’s Word can be written in our minds and upon our hearts. But there’s little evidence of this having ever taken place among many of the members of our community. We should not be so worried about one another in terms of how we keep Torah and splitting hairs about the nuances of Torah. We should not be harboring hatred and anger towards one another if indeed the Ruach Kodesh is dwelling within us. We have been freed from the cold, lifelessness of religion and carnality. Sickness should not be named among any members of our body; poverty should not be plaguing the members of the body; peace and joy should be the mainstay between members of the body; many sons and daughters should be flooding into the body on a regular basis. Why isn’t this stuff happening in the true Body of Messiah? I’ll tell you why: because we’re still stuck at the base of Mount Sinai to this very day. We’ve not left the base of that mountain and we’ve not embraced the indwelling, the power and the might of Abba’s precious Ruach HaKodesh.

What is this Truth that Master spoke to the woman at the well about? Truth is the Word of Yahuah—specifically Torah. The writer of Psalm 119: 142 wrote:

“Thy righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and thy law (i.e., thy Torah) is the truth.” (KJV)

So what then is Master saying in His statement regarding the true worshipers worshiping Yahuah in Spirit and in Truth? Essentially Master is saying that true worship comes through Spirit-filled Torah-living—plain and simple. That’s it. It is now time that Hebrew Roots embraces Spirit-filled-Torah-living and stop pussy-footing around. We’ve wasted enough time as it is. And there is no more crucial a time such as this whereby we absolutely must adopt full on spirit-filled-Torah-living.

With that, I will bid you a warm and blessed Shalom. Until next time fellow Saints in Training.