Yeshua’s Most Critical Choice

by Lonnie Lane

Could Yeshua have ever had a faith crisis? Or a love crises?
If He was “tempted in all things as we
are” (Hebrews 4:15), He must have. Hearing a message recently about God’s
love stirred in me a realization that He heals because He loves us. It’s that
simple and that profound! Now maybe you’re saying, “You just got that?” Yeah, I
just got that. At least on the level I’m seeing it now. The next morning I woke up with the
words, “Faith worketh by love,” going
through my mind. I presume it was God whispering those words to me. As I
continued to press into the Lord for more revelation from Him on this, He began
to open up the following. I always expect these “revs” aren’t just for me, so this
is for you too.

I heard the Spirit tell me, “Without the understanding that
“faith works through love” (Galatians
5:6), Kingdom reality cannot be fully accessed.” Faith alone will not accomplish
what it will when love is the motivating factor, especially when it’s Yeshua’s
love and Yeshua’s faith upon which ours rests. His faith was (and still is) established
on His personal “knowing” of His Father. His wasn’t a conceptual or intellectual
faith, like ours often is. His was experiential. It was an intrinsic part of
His personality. He knew God as His Father. Assuming you had a father you knew,
how well did you know him, his personality, his likes and dislikes, his ways,
whether they were good or not so good? He too knew His Father. That’s why He
could say, “As the Father knows Me, even
so I know the Father” (John 10:15 NKJB).

There are references in Scripture where God is identified as
a Father to Israel, but Israel had such reverence for God, that they wouldn’t
even presume to speak His name, or write it, which is why it is often written
as G-d, even today. He would never have been referred to the same way you refer
to a member of your family. That would have indicated a familiarity and
disrespect that would have been considered blasphemy. Then here comes Yeshua
who speaks of God Almighty as His Father, His Abba (The word for Father in
Greek would be Abba in Hebrew). My grandchildren call their Israeli-born father
Abba. It’s a term of affection, of close and intimate relationship. No one ever
referred to God in such loving and familiar terms before. But Yeshua openly
does. No wonder the leaders were upset with Him about this: “Who does He think
He is, calling God Abba; Daddy?” You can see why that would have been a problem
for them. I mean, how could they have understood that He was actually God’s
biological Son?!

From the time He was twelve that we know of, Yeshua knew God
as His Father. When Miriam (Mary) and Joseph couldn’t find Yeshua when they
took Him on their Passover pilgrimage to Jerusalem, they finally found this
twelve year old dialoging with the rabbis in the Temple. His response to them
when they found Him was, “Why is it
that you were looking for Me? Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” (Luke
2:49). So evidently, He had such a relationship with the God of Israel even at
that young age that it was a major part of His self-Identity as God’s Son.
Ponder that for a while of a boy, then a teenager, growing up.

Undoubtedly His constant companion was His Abba, with His
presence and nearness being with Him at all times. You know how God teaches you
things, and how He somehow lets you know what’s pleasing to Him and what’s not,
what is good for you and what’s not? And how He lets you know He’s with you? (If
you’ve not personally experienced this, ask Him to show you His love for you.
Ask Him to show you how you can be closer to Him. Continue to bring the matter
to Him, expecting Him to answer your prayer for more of Him.) Imagine, if you
can, how involved His Father would have been in Yeshua’s life and upbringing. He
would protect Him to keep Him pure in the midst of a Fallen world, teaching Him
how to process what went on around Him, giving Him understanding as to how He, being
the only one without a sin nature, saw things differently than other people. I
imagine that His relationship with His Father was His only real companionship,
Abba being the only one with Whom He shared the way He saw things in life. No
wonder we read that He often went off to be alone with God, even spending all
night in prayer. I’ve often through that what we call the Sermon on the Mount
was a catalog of things He had to process while growing up as He witnessed the
lack of meekness, of mercy, of purity of heart. In contrast, Yeshua’s whole life reveals God’s love and a faith
that “bears all things, believes all
things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (1 Cor. 13:7). You can see
why Yeshua could say, “I and the Father
are one” (John 10:30).

Now go in your thoughts to the cross. He knew what would
take place. This wasn’t anything He wasn’t prepared for. He knew exactly what
would happen. Isaiah 53 had told Him that. His Father had prepared Him. Moses
and Elijah had even come from heaven to strengthen Him for what He’d go through
(see Matthew 17:1-3). He knew far better than John what it meant to be “the lamb of God who takes away the sin of
the world” (John 1:29). But when faced with the impending experience of
crucifixion looming before Him, in the Garden of Gethsemane, we see Him
struggle with doing God’s will. Yet, even so, being willing to endure the shame
and the pain, and to lay down His life, “He
humbled Himself by becoming obedient
to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Phil. 2:8).

Perhaps it’s not the pain and the shame that caused Him to
be in such anguish that He broke blood vessels and sweated blood, but the
separation from His Father that terrified Him. He knew it would have to happen.
But when the sins of mankind were completely placed upon Him so that He fully
experienced the separation from God which sin causes, He cries out in shock, “Eli, Eli, Lama sabachtani” – “My God, My
God, (no Abba now), why have You forsaken me?” Forsaken! Abandoned! Those would
have been forever terms for Him. He would have experienced abject and complete
hopelessness! It is at this point, under what must have been the greatest
stress any human being has ever endured, He is faced with the world’s most
critical decision. It is said that
crises will reveal what kind of person we truly are. But there is still a
decision that must be made as to how we will respond in times of crisis.

Consider another choice that was made many years earlier. Eve, then Adam, went through a similar test
in the Garden of Eden and failed it. Theirs was far less stressful but equally
consequential for the fate of mankind. The difference is, they didn’t know
that. They only thought it was about them whereas Yeshua knew it wasn’t just
about His fate, but the world’s.

The suggestion had been made to Eve by the devil speaking
through a serpent that God wasn’t interested in her wellbeing, not really. He
was withholding something from her so she wouldn’t become like Him, so He alone
could keep the power. But she could improve her situation. She would be right
to act in her own best interest. The insinuation was made that God threatened
her with a lie that she would die if she ate of the fruit of that one tree; “You surely will not die” (Genesis 3:4),
said the serpent. If she would just eat of that apple, then she would be like
God. The fact was, she and Adam were already like God, having been created in
His image. How much more like Him could they be?

We have heard this story so often that, even though we know
what happened, we may miss the magnitude of the defiance and rebellion in the devil’s
words to Adam. Or we might not grasp the repercussions that ricocheted off of
heaven’s gate, shutting it off to mankind. Or the consequences that sent shock
waves throughout creation in response to the horror of her act of independence,
as it too was affected. Each time I read the story I want to shout at her, “No,
don’t do it. You’re being lied to. You don’t know what this will mean!”

This kind of independence had happened before, when Lucifer
led a rebellion in heaven and 1/3 of the angels mutinied and were hurled out of
heaven. We can’t possibly imagine how terrifying God’s wrath must have been
toward those rebellious angels for whom things did not work out as Lucifer had planned
in his deceived mind. They hadn’t expected to be driven with a word from God
away from His glory and presence at the speed of light! (See Luke 10:18.) How the
horror of this rebellion must have affected the faithful 2/3 of the angels who had
likely known for eons those who were expelled from heaven. What did it mean to
them to realize that such rebellion could even exist in God’s creation?  I imagine it must have heightened their
love for God in all His goodness and their commitment to obedience to Him,
having seen what could happen, how pride had come in and shipwrecked, to use a
human term, those who rebelled. All this is to say that the Fall, the choice to
distrust God and to act on one’s own behalf, plummeted the earth into the
life-compromised, death-fearing, sin-saturated state it’s been in every since. That
there is joy and pleasure at all is purely due to the grace of God, even though
independence and rebellion continues.

We know intellectually the consequence of Eve’s and then Adam’s
choice, of course. We who are God’s know that to even insinuate that God is not
good or that He was withholding something from Eve for His own self-centered
reasons, is not only contrary to God’s character and nature, it is entirely
reflective of satan’s character and nature. He is a self-absorbed liar and a
continual accuser. But not knowing
that, and only having known God’s goodness, Eve believed the Liar and for the
first time, she doubts God’s goodness to her when satan twisted His words. The evil one caused her to doubt that she was all that she
could be, though she was created in God’s image, and that she really needed to
do something to act on her own behalf, like eat the forbidden fruit so she
would know good and evil like God did. And so she did, and from that moment on
humankind lived shut off from God’s immediate presence. We could say that
history is a record of all that has taken place as mankind in our separation
from God had attempted to fill that void by trying to bring about what we would
have if God were God in our lives.

When Yeshua hung on the cross He experienced that same separation
from God’s presence. And though He knew it would have to happen, when it did,
it shocked Him to find Himself entirely cut off from God, without any sense of His
Father whatsoever. How long or short a time it had taken for this to close in
around him, for the first time in eternity past He was entirely without God’s presence. He was completely
identified with Fallen humankind at this point. Plunged into complete despair,
Yeshua was faced with a choice – the most critical choice of all time.

The choice was this: Whether He would respond to the void
left by God’s departure which He was now experiencing, or to the goodness of
God He’d always known. Would it be God’s honor or His own “wellbeing” He would
choose. The Fall was about self. What would He opt for in the midst of having been
abandoned by God after all? From the cross He hears a ridiculing voice. He’s
heard that voice before: “…save
Yourself! If You are the Son of God,
come down from the cross” (Matthew 27:40). He could have. He had the authority to call angels to His
aid. He knew that voice was the devil’s: “If
You are the Son of God” do something on Your own to prove it. Was He
tempted to prove it? Perhaps He remembered at that moment the temptation to
turn a stone into bread when He was so hungry. The Word had been His bread at
that time. Now would the Word be His truth even when despair screamed at Him
that all was lost and every demon that had access to Him screeched accusations at
Him that He was a fool for having believed it would save Him.

If He was tempted in all things as we are, He had to have
been faced with the ultimate issues that mankind faces: To doubt God and His
Word to us; to doubt His goodness. Tempted to doubt both, since it appeared
that God’s faithfulness had failed Him, He had to have been tempted to save
Himself, to act for His own wellbeing. That had to have been part of what was
overcome by the cross. He would have had to face what Adam and Eve faced. The
devil had to have told Him, “So you think you’re the Son of God, then act like
God and take matters into Your own hands.”

The Fall was all about deifying Self, and acting in one’s own
self interest when the devil made it  appear as if God wasn’t really good after all and can’t be
trusted. Yeshua would have to have been tempted, if even for a moment, to think
there was no other way than to act independent of God’s Word. But temptation
isn’t the same as compliance. When Yeshua was faced with the shock of perceived
abandonment, knowing now the terror of what it is to be entirely without God
and immersed in complete despair, even so, He chose to remain faithful. With no
sense of God’s love for Him, he chose not to abandon loving and honoring God
even when He thought He had been abandoned and all was lost. Even then, He trusted
in God’s goodness. The love He’d always had with God caused His faith to rise
up and believe in God’s goodness, regardless of everything appearing to be
contrary. The greatest test was this – that He was devoid of feeling God’s
presence and love and yet His love for God and His commitment to honor and obey
Him at all costs, overrode His concern for Himself. Regardless of the cost, He
would remain faithful to honor God.

This very choice, I felt God was saying, was the fulcrum
upon which the salvation of the world rests. A fulcrum is a lever which enables
the lift of things too heavy to lift otherwise. Yeshua’s faith in God’s love,
which is to say in His goodness, in the face of all that appeared otherwise,
was the fulcrum which lifted mankind out of the sin and guilt that had
permeated our lives since Eve took a bite of the apple. We sing sometimes,
“Love lifted me.” Here is a picture of it. Yeshua’s faith, motivated entirely by
love, was the fulcrum that lifted us out of the Fall!

We possibly live in a time, as Yeshua told His disciples, when,
“because lawlessness (That is
Torahlessness, or Bible-lessness) is
increased, most people’s love will
grow cold” (Matthew 24:12). Love,
that is righteous unselfish love, can only come directly from God, and is entirely
of the Spirit, nothing of the flesh. We do all have a measure of faith and of
love, but godly faith which accomplishes God’s will can really only “worketh”
by godly love. This means the Remnant will not live by the flesh, or the understanding
of our minds (see Prov. 3:5), but by our faithfulness to Yeshua and our love for
the Word of God which we keep embedded in our hearts as the only truth. As I wrote this, I was struck with how
much overcoming power there is in the “simplicity
and purity of devotion to Messiah” (2 Cor. 11:3).

With the revelation and understanding of all above, the
following words came on the heels of it as an application for an end time
people. As with all prophecy, it
must be judged. See if you think it’s from God.

“This is what My end time people will rest their salvation
and their hope upon, that the love of God will see them through even when all
else screams that He has abandoned them. He will not have. Their love for God will
be in itself a sovereign work of God, and will give them the faith to honor God
above all else, even with their own lives if need be. In this is the
overcoming, not just of immediate circumstances, but in this is the culmination
of this age and the ushering in of the fullness of redemption – by your faith
working through your love of God.”

“All that is in the church which is motivated, inspired or
sustained by the flesh, if you are to be truly God’s witnesses in the world,
will have to go. I will dismantle that which is motivated by self-promotion, self-will,
or fleshly ambition. What is birthed in independence from God, will be shaken
out and be no more.”

“Hear this: I am putting a tourniquet on the supply line to
that among My people which has kept them dependent upon all else but Me, and
which has kept them preoccupied with advancement I never intended. There is so
much I never intended that is called Kingdom of God. This tourniquet will stop
the hemorrhaging of resources into that which will not profit in the days to
come. This is a time to stand still when things change and wait and see the
salvation of the Lord. If you run to try and stop the depletion or to provide
for yourselves in other ways when the ways you’ve known and operate in no
longer bear the fruit you’ve been eating, you will be eating of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil, suspecting evil and trying to make it good again,
and entirely miss eating of the tree of Life.

Faith works, operates, functions and is effective by love.
My love for you will see you through. Your love for Me and for each other, and
even for your enemies, is that which alone will be the final victory – and the
triumph of the love of the Father for the world.

Be ye holy as I AM holy Be ye love as I AM.

Reprint of this article is permitted as long as you use the following; Use by permission by Messianic Vision, www.sidroth.org, 2010.

Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible Copyright ©1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation, La Habra, Calif.  All rights reserved. Used by permission.