0:00:00 - 0:00:31 So uh yesterday I received a question about the meaning of John 2022. This was on the video about the Pentecost. And the viewer asked, well, I'll read John 2022. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive ye the Holy Ghost. And uh the viewer wrote in some Polynesian cultures 0:00:30 - 0:01:00 , they talk about the ha the breath and in some, when you greet each other, you also use breath. I just wondered if you had any insight to what that verse meant and if there was a connection, well, very, very good question. So thank you for asking. Um So the preceding verse in John 20 reads then said 0:01:00 - 0:01:31 Jesus to them again, peace be unto you as my father hath sent me even so send I you. Now this was when he appeared to them after his resurrection. So what does it mean when he says as my father hath sent me even so send I you well uh in many other places, especially in the gospel of John, you see the 0:01:31 - 0:00:00 Lord speaking about his role in demonstrating the Father, basically what he says again. And again is that he came here to show how the father would act if the father were in the place of the son. So he's, he came to demonstrate the father and in another place he says, let me look this up real quick. 0:00:00 - 0:02:39 Please hold uh in Matthew 514, he says, ye are the light of the world and then skipping down to verse 16, let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father, which is in heaven. Now, that's not exactly in plain English. Although you know, you may have read that 0:02:39 - 0:03:04 or heard that said 100 times. What, what does it actually mean in plain English? If you're explaining this to an eight year old, what would you say? Well, in modern language, you'd say something like live your life so that anyone who interacts with you will better understand how good God is because of 0:03:03 - 0:00:00 that interaction. And that was the mission of Jesus on earth amongst other things, but also as a part of that. So I'm referring to a sacrifice um taking upon himself the penalty of our sins. That was part of the demonstration of the Father, the Father's love, the Father's character. And God is love. 0:00:00 - 0:03:52 Love is a culmination of the character of God, which is absolutely related to other things I'm about to tell you. So then Jesus turns and he says to his disciples during his life, let your light, so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your father, which is in heaven. And then 0:03:52 - 0:04:21 when he comes back, he says, as my father hath sent me even so send I you, do you see how this is all the same? All right, what does this have to do with receiving the holy ghost? Well, when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, receive ye the holy ghost. So receiving the Holy ghost 0:04:21 - 0:04:53 is absolutely coupled to living exactly as you sincerely believe Jesus would in your place, you can't separate these things. And if you do the one, you have the other and if you have the other, it's because you do the one now, that's the, that's the simple truth straight given to you straight. But there 0:04:53 - 0:05:24 is so much more about this. That's so much more important. If you just learn and live the basic simple doctrine of repentance, you'd already understand what I just said because you're living what I just said, you're already reconciled to God. But, and by the way, nothing I say here that's critical in 0:05:24 - 0:05:52 any way is specific to this viewer who asked the question. I don't know that person at all and I commend her, um I think pictures of, of her, um I commend her for asking the question and the way she did it was, was uh just right, very appropriate. But in general, the fact is that people don't repent 0:05:51 - 0:06:19 . People who know better, don't repent. People who have every reason to don't repent. And then they wonder why they have not received the Holy Ghost. And then they look for some mystery to fill in the gap for not having what they could have and what they should have. They tried to skip steps in the ascent 0:06:18 - 0:06:54 into heaven, which is not about where you go as much as it is about who you become. So let me ask you this when Jesus told the disciples, ye are the light of the world, et cetera. Did they live according to how they believed he would live in every situation? No, they did not. They had him right there 0:06:53 - 0:07:16 . Did they ask him all the questions? They could have to fill in the gaps. No, they did not. So they neither followed the example they had nor you took advantage of the additional information they could have received to fill in the gaps. Now, as you seek to live as Christ would in your place, you will 0:07:16 - 0:07:40 find out just how many situations there are where you have no clue how he would act in your place. So they did not receive the Holy Ghost at that time during his life. He came back, he said this to them. He even briefed on them. Did they receive the Holy Ghost at that time? No, they did not. They received 0:07:40 - 0:08:09 the holy ghost at Pentecost. Which came later. Why didn't they receive the Holy Ghost at this time when he came to them after his resurrection? That's a good question to ponder and it has an answer. It's an important answer. Ok. So why did he breathe on him, on them? What was that all about? Well, there's 0:08:08 - 0:08:39 a lot to this, like I said, but to get you started, you can look into the connection um between breath and spirit and look into Genesis and study out they interactions between God and Adam before Adam was alive here on earth. And um the other references because there are probably seven or eight that 0:08:38 - 0:09:01 are quite important through the scriptures uh on this topic. And you can find those just by searching breath and studying out the context and, and of the 50 or so hits, you might get about seven of them are really important. The other ones don't really refer to this per se. Ok. So, so why am I not teaching 0:09:01 - 0:09:26 you all about that right now? Well, if you don't already have the Holy Ghost, it's because you're not obeying basic things and you're withholding that for some reason, maybe you're expecting something to come along that makes it easier. That's not the way it works as you resist and reject the Lord. Things 0:09:25 - 0:09:51 just get harder and there is no other way. Um So there's that, but the fact is that we wouldn't be able to get much deeper into this without touching on all sorts of things, from resurrection to the beginning of the world, to the end of the world and me explaining things to you that have never been explained 0:09:50 - 0:10:19 . And, um, the issue with that is that all of the goodness from God and all the information pertaining to God, it's hierarchical and it's, it's described as the mountain of the Lord. And the problem is when you try to pluck something from higher and bring it down lower, there's a process for doing that 0:10:19 - 0:10:47 . There's an immense cost that has to be paid in order to be able to do that. But there's a process that you have to lead people through. And if you don't put it inside of that context, that, that uh experience those criteria, those gateways, if you don't put it into that, you just hurt people, you hurt 0:10:46 - 0:11:12 people because there is no other way. And so what you end up doing is bringing down consequences that are much heavier than people are ready to bear. And you pretty much guarantee that they're going to experience those negative consequences instead of the positive consequences that are available for 0:11:12 - 0:00:00 those who obtain and live greater light and truth because someone who's not living lesser light and truth is not going to accept greater light and truth. This is why it's not the ideal situation for a man of God to begin his ministry publicly performing mighty miracles. That's not the way you start, 0:00:00 - 0:12:10 you start with wisdom, you start by publicly sharing wisdom. And anyway, that's just a glimpse. There's a, a huge ball of wax here about what the process is in the ideal circumstances. But what it comes down to is the, the willingness the hearer has to appraise the value in what is given. Because if 0:12:10 - 0:12:34 the value is not correctly appraised and what is shared is undervalued or as Jesus would put it, you put pearls before swine, they trample it and they turn and attack you and that doesn't really matter because pigs can't hurt people from God. There's nothing anyone can do to frustrate God's purposes 0:12:34 - 0:12:55 . That's, that's a very deep topic. Very important one. I won't get into it but suffice it to say that anything anyone tries to do to harm someone who's in the path of God, it will just actually help them in the long term no matter how bad it looks in the moment. Even if they're being sawn in half or 0:12:55 - 0:13:18 nailed to a cross, it's actually just promoting God's purposes in the end. That's not the problem. The problem isn't that the pigs rend you? The problem is the, the, the problem is not what happens to you. It's what happens to the pigs because the pigs turn away from something better and they turn into 0:13:18 - 0:13:42 something worse. You can't turn away from something better without turning into something worse. And that's the whole problem. This, um, is a complex process. Jesus referred to it as keeping them in thy word. When in John 17, when he was praying to the father, he said, I've kept these people in thy word 0:13:41 - 0:14:02 , his disciples. He was handing them back to the father because he knew he was leaving. And he said, well, I've brought them this far and he asked the father to, to continue taking care of them and guiding them in their, in their journey. Because as he said to the apostles where I'm going, you can't 0:14:01 - 0:14:26 come, you're not ready yet. You haven't learned what you need to learn. You haven't become what you have to become, they could have because Jesus had everything they needed and he showed them everything they needed, but they wouldn't receive it. So there's no shortcuts and if there were Jesus would have 0:14:26 - 0:14:53 given them to his apostles and he didn't. And so uh here we are, and there are all these things that are available for you to know about these breaths. And there are multiple breaths from God. There are seven, in fact, specifically, there are seven breaths. The one that Jesus shared with the apostles 0:14:53 - 0:15:24 was the first. And I, I'll give you two, well, three, because I've already given you one, I'll give you three extraordinarily valuable pieces. Uh Second piece is that the first one is repentance. It's the invitation to repent, which must consist of information about how things could be better. And I 0:15:24 - 0:15:52 say things because it's not just you becoming better, you become better by making everything in your circle of influence better. It's part of it, it's not separate, it's part of it. So you have to know how things could be better. And knowledge is part of what this breath is. It's information. So you 0:15:52 - 0:16:19 have to know what is better. A t least somewhat. It's, it's incremental, it's continuous because awareness just keeps going and you have to have the reasons for believing that it's possible and it's worth it. So you need to know what could be better. How could it could be better? What difference it would 0:16:19 - 0:16:58 make and that it's possible for you to do in Jesus is all of those things. And so as you come to know him better, you receive all of the ingredients to do that. When you breathe something you take in something and you let out something what comes in is different than what goes out when a mother eats 0:16:58 - 0:17:29 a baby bird, not when a mother eats a baby bird. When a mother eats a bird, mother, a mother bird eats food and chews it up and then spits it out into the mouth of a baby bird. What goes out is not the same as what went in? How is it different? The mother adds to it and transforms it into something that 0:17:28 - 0:17:58 is more easily digested, received by the baby bird. When a human mother has a baby, whether the baby is still in her or whether she's nursing the baby, she's transforming what she has access to into something that can be more readily received by the baby. In both cases, how does the mother do this through 0:17:58 - 0:18:29 sacrifice? So what does it mean for the Lord to breathe on you? He's given you more than you had? He's showing you better than you knew. He's empowering you to become more than you ever could. So the final valuable key, I'm going to give you here, which is again, just the smallest slice of what I could 0:18:29 - 0:18:57 tell you. But I'll, I'll tell you again why I can't. In a second, I will give you more about why I can't. Is that these seven breaths are described in the scriptures? And I will tell you two specific places where they are and I will tell you that those lists are the same. But part before I do, I will 0:18:57 - 0:19:24 reiterate a lesson that I have mentioned before. And I will mention again, which is part of the reason that you depreciate or value less than you should, what you do not yet have is that you refuse to pay attention to. And then honestly um admit after the fact, what you do not yet have and because you 0:19:24 - 0:19:55 insist on pretending you have more than you do or in scriptural phrase, you um consider yourself wise, you set up um additional barriers between you and the Lord, which boil down to barriers between you and greater joy that you could have because you are so concerned about how good you already are, as 0:19:54 - 0:20:35 you suppose that you refuse to see and receive and value and become what is better than you, namely the Lord and everything that comes from him and everything he is. So I'm actively filtering other things I'd like to say about that because it's not God's will right now. So sometimes people acknowledge 0:20:34 - 0:20:59 what they don't know by asking questions. But as rare as that is, it's even rarer for those people to then fully appreciate what they've received when someone answers their question because, well, this is a large topic. I'll try to trim this down too to just a few ideas. You can't have joy in something 0:20:59 - 0:21:24 you don't value and you can only have as much joy as you value that thing. That thing can only bring you as much joy as you value it. So when you take things lightly, all you're actually doing is cutting off your own legs in the sense of you're making it harder for you to see and receive more while also 0:21:24 - 0:21:49 vastly reducing the amount of joy. You should already have not just future joy, you already have the ingredients for tremendous joy and why don't you have all of it? Because you're so concerned with how good you already are that you don't see the good you've already received. You're so concerned with 0:21:48 - 0:22:15 how good you think you are that you don't notice the good that you actually have from God. So until and unless you vastly increase how much you value light and truth, you tremendously limit what God can send you without harming you. And how does it harm you to have greater light and truth when you don't 0:22:15 - 0:22:41 acknowledge and live it and value it. Well, one, there are negative consequences for turning away from what you know, because God holds us accountable to what we have access to where much light is given, much is expected. Two. Well, where much is given much is expected two when you actually receive things 0:22:41 - 0:23:00 , but you failed to acknowledge that they came from somewhere else. So you just pretend that you already knew these things, which happens all the time even though you didn't and you pretend that you had these things even though you didn't and you pretend that the cost to receive them must be very low 0:23:00 - 0:23:21 even though you have no idea because you didn't have it and you didn't have it precisely because you wouldn't pay the price because it was too high and you don't care about light and truth that much. Not as much as the one who did receive the answer and gave it to you. Because of all of that. You're 0:23:21 - 0:23:45 going to think you're somebody when you're not, you're going to think that you're better than you are because you're counting your value by the light that someone else paid the price to give you, instead of counting your value by the light that you receive through paying the price, which no matter how 0:23:44 - 0:24:16 you slice it, we're not valuable at all. The only value we have is the light that God has given us. That's the secret, but these are sterilized realizations. So in doing those two things, you cut yourself off from greater value, which is the key to greater joy. And that's how you hurt yourself by having 0:24:15 - 0:24:50 access to things that are, that are too far beyond what you're prepared for. So we're gonna get to this list. But I just want to say finally on this before I forget, you need to ask yourself why you don't already know these things. And I'll give you the answer to that question. It's because you're not 0:24:50 - 0:25:16 willing to pay the price to know them in the gospel. There is a sophisticated process which I will try very hard to not use words that you think you know the meaning to, to describe there's a sophisticated process whereby one can receive blessings beyond the price they have paid. But that receipt still 0:25:15 - 0:25:47 has a price. And while the price is much less than the price to receive it directly from God, say it's still a price. And here's I said, I was just gonna give you three very valuable things. Here's 1/4 when you ask a question, you need to understand or when you ask seek or knock, it's not just about 0:25:47 - 0:26:18 questions when you seek anything you don't have. Here's what you don't understand. What you're actually doing is asking the way the path higher in the mountain of the Lord. And I'm going to tell you that that will, the response to that will always include a person, a law and a place, a person, a law 0:26:18 - 0:26:48 and a place. But you just think it's information. Now, these two things are actually the same. They're actually the same. But you don't see that they're the same because your awareness is down here and these, the understanding of this is higher, you're looking at a very low resolution picture. But if 0:26:48 - 0:27:11 you come up, you'll see how this is actually this. And if you know about a person, a place and a law, it will help you find these things a lot faster than you otherwise could. If you thought that all you were doing was asking what's this deal about breath and then the information that's out there. If 0:27:11 - 0:27:31 someone knows it's the same thing as me knowing. I mean, I didn't know it before but basically I did or you say something like, well, I knew a lot about that before, but there's a little chunk I didn't know. And you don't realize that the gap between where you were and where you are now is an eternity 0:27:30 - 0:27:51 apart. You have no idea what it would take to cover that distance if someone hadn't done it for you, you literally have no idea because you didn't do that. You've never done anything like that, even if you found out the answer to other questions that hasn't scaled up to this sort of thing. And that's 0:27:51 - 0:28:14 the very reason you don't have the answer. You have no idea. You know, have you prayed about something for six months every day? Have you prayed about something for 10 years or 15 years? And some of you have, most of you have not. What's the greatest price you would ever pay for something? Do you care 0:28:13 - 0:28:38 so much about the answer to a question that, uh, I've used this analogy before. You'd crawl across the country on your knees to find the answer. There are things in the gospel that require a price even greater than that and you cannot know them unless you pay that price or you meet someone who has, those 0:28:37 - 0:29:12 are the only two ways in everything that I share with you. One of the objectives is to help you see how much value is available and what the price is because whether you pay the price for the value or you pay a lower price to gain access through the value to the value through someone else, either way 0:29:11 - 0:29:37 there is a price involved that is much, much, much, much higher then you currently believe is possible worthwhile or necessary. The good news. Is, the value is also much, much, much, much greater than you've ever imagined. But until you come up in your appraisal of these things and your comprehension 0:29:36 - 0:30:12 of these things, you aren't in the mountain, you're somewhere off in the valley. And if you really want to draw closer, that's what it takes. All right. So here's the third thing, you'll find the two lists of seven things in Isaiah 11 verse two and in second Peter one verses five through seven. And the 0:30:11 - 0:30:35 , the another key on this to help you get it. Because if you just read it, you, you might not even though I've shown you where to look. And I've told you the connection exists and that is the most valuable part because without that, you can't do anything that follows. But I'll tell you the order is reversed 0:30:34 - 0:31:09 . And so there's a pairing here and uh the first rung on that ladder um is what Peter calls virtue and what Isaiah calls the spirit of the fear of God. And both of those are the same. And they both mean what I described at the beginning of this video when I was describing repentance to you, the outcome 0:31:08 - 0:31:31 of climbing that rung or receiving that breath and actually living it because obviously the Lord breathed on the apostles, the disciples. There was more than just the 11 there actually uh the 10 were there, Thomas wasn't even there. But the outcome of actually receiving that breath is not the same as 0:31:31 - 0:31:52 being blown on um to actually receive it. You need to let you need to reconcile your life to everything you know about Jesus already. The outcome of that is the Holy Ghost period. So if you want to know why that they didn't receive the Holy Ghost until Pentecost, it's because it took them that long to 0:31:52 - 0:32:25 actually yield to God. So there's even more to that even, but we will leave it at that. Um Making these videos takes time even though the Lord blesses me to say what I say without taking time to prepare them. Um For the most part, there are some, I use notes for uh this is incredibly expensive for me 0:32:25 - 0:32:52 to do. Not just because like you, I have the necessities of life that I have to care for. I have a family to support and um other things that I need to do. But because if I weren't doing these videos, the time of the day that I do them is my time to um to minister through receiving more from God and 0:32:52 - 0:33:14 organizing these things and receiving them and processing them by interacting with the Lord and writing them down. And um there are very much more important things than these things that I share with you in these videos that I'm writing in books to be published. And it's a zero sum game as far as my 0:33:14 - 0:33:49 time goes. So it's very important to use what you've already been given by the Lord and make use of it and value it appropriately to ensure that the greatest joy available is actually flowing down from heaven to the greatest extent possible. And uh 11 part of the appreciation is to appreciate the time 0:33:48 - 0:34:05 it takes because you can understand that maybe uh even if the rest of the price is not yet understandable. So hopefully that is helpful. Um take care.