Living Words
"Living Words" is a weekly podcast that explores the transformative power of scripture across a diverse range of Biblical books, guided by insightful devotionals from the author's own works. Each episode seeks to deepen faith and understanding, connecting listeners with the enduring wisdom and relevance of the Bible in their daily lives.
Living Words
Beyond Gender: The Complete Nature of Elohim Revealed
What if our understanding of God has been missing a crucial dimension? In this candid exploration of my new devotional project "28 Days to Revival," I open up about a perspective that might challenge traditional thinking but remains deeply rooted in scripture.
The Hebrew scriptures present the Holy Spirit—Ruach HaKodosh—using feminine language, portraying a nurturing, motherly aspect of God's character that complements the more familiar masculine attributes. This isn't about imposing modern gender concepts onto the divine, but rather recovering the full biblical picture that has always been there. The Spirit hovers over creation "like an eagle over her brood," serves as the "Ezer" (helper) to Messiah just as Eve was to Adam, and prepares us—the bride—for our ultimate covenant relationship.
This perspective offers profound healing, especially for those whose concept of God has been damaged by negative experiences with earthly parents. By recognizing both the strength and tenderness of our Creator, we experience a more complete relationship with the divine. Since humanity—both male and female—was created in God's image, both masculine and feminine qualities reflect aspects of divine character. Through daily meditation on scripture and personal divine encounters structured in this devotional, we can discover a revival that isn't just emotional fervor but a transformed understanding of who God is and how we relate to Him in every moment of our lives.
Have you considered how your concept of God might change if you embraced both the Father's strength and the Spirit's nurturing presence? Take this journey with me through "28 Days to Revival" and discover the fullness of God's nature as revealed in scripture.
Just a few words. This morning I wanted to talk about the latest project I'm working on, which is 28 Days to Revival, and it's the Voice of the Holy One. I'm not sure that's going to be the final title, but that's just my working title right now. And I know people that revival is an old, tired expression and what we really want is not a revival of old traditions. Anyway, we want restoration. But the reason I use revival is because that's the term that most people think of when they think of renewed walk in walk in the spirit and, and, uh, fire of heaven. You know the nature, the, the passion, the, the commit, commitment and compassion of a renewed walk with Elohim and in the spirit. It's revival, you know, and so I'm going to go with that for now. It's a working title, but the one thing I wanted to talk about was it's revival, and so I'm going to go with that for now.
Speaker 1:It's a working title, but the one thing I wanted to talk about was the nature and the format of the book. It's a devotional, 28 days, so it's 28 chapters, one chapter for each day, and the structure is scriptural. So the first thing you have are living words, which are a group of passages of scripture that set the theme for that day, and after that there's a section called the voice of god, where I'm using god isn't in the first person, he's speaking to you. I like a book that like come away, my beloved was that sort of that format, but it's personal and it's scriptural, it's biblical directed, but more importantly is I am referring to the Holy Spirit, the Ruach HaKadosh, in the female participle, staying true to the Hebrew. In the Hebrew the Ruach is a feminine noun and I understand this is controversial and could create a lot of, you know, uncomfortableness for some people, and you know I've struggled with it. But the more I've studied it and and the more I've looked at it, it truly is that the Ruach HaKadosh is the Ezer, the helper Of the Messiah. The same way is that Eve was the Ezer of Adam and Messiah Yeshua is the second Adam and the Ezer is the helper that adorns the bride, that prepares the bride for the wedding feast, and this is the position of the body of Yeshua. We are his children, we are his bride, and the Holy Spirit guides us and leads us. And, importantly, because the creator himself has both masculine and feminine characteristics, and this is borne out in Scripture. You know there's verses that talk about the motherliness of the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit in creation, from the very beginning, hovered over the waters like a giant eagle hovering over her brood. And this is the picture that I have in my mind.
Speaker 1:And what it does too, is it softens the rough edges of just a completely, totally masculine God and that you could say people, you could begin to be dominant male masculineness. You know, people, it's tyrannical, it can be, it can be overpowering. You know that when he disciplines, he disciplines in harshness. You've completely removed any softness, any feminine aspect of God. Then you're left with raw, heartless, you know. And as much as you might think in your mind, you know, but just because he's man doesn't make him not compassionate.
Speaker 1:Think about the way our mind works, the way our society works, the way our culture works. We are male and female. We are male and female and we're made in the image of God. And it takes both aspects. It says the two become one flesh. It is a covenant relationship. So the marriage between a man and a woman is the reflection or the mirror of the relationship between Elohim, the creator, and his creation. It is a covenant relationship. He is unknowable, he is indescribable, yet he makes himself known through covenant. There is no relationship with God outside of covenant. Let me say that again there is no relationship with the creator outside of covenant. He's made no other provision except through the son, except through union and confirmation of the covenant that he has made, the covenant of promise that he gave to us, that he brought forth from Abraham to Sinai, to the new covenant in his blood. This is how he's made himself known to us and there are both male and female characteristics of his nature, and that's what I hope to bring forth in this book and to help people with a deeper walk.
Speaker 1:It highlights the fact because if you think of the Holy Spirit as he, always as he, and it's a mothering role, it's a nurturing role it might be hard for people to grasp that, because what, if you know, if maybe their father was a monster? And that's the imprint on their life, is that they have this distorted view of God because of the way their father was, their earthly father or their earthly mother? But what this does is it provides an opportunity to see the Holy Spirit from a different perspective, a perspective that's nurturing, mothering, loving, kindness, and it's not to gender the Holy Spirit. It's not because I'm not. We're not even talking about gendering in the human sense, where you know that's. This is about characteristics. This is about understanding nature.
Speaker 1:So what is the nature of God? And it's hard to describe, it's hard to explain, but I'm not going to explain it other than what I have already and I have explained it with the scripture, and I'm going to continue down this track because it's helpful in my walk that I've had. I've seen fruit in my own life. Now, as I approach the father daily, continuously, as I let his ten words wash my heart, in my risings up, in my sittings down, in my driving, in my walking, in my washing the dishes and doing my work, whatever it is that I'm mindful of him and his spirit within me. So that's really all I wanted to say today.
Speaker 1:I just wanted to get that out there because it's a project I'm working on. I understand it could be controversial. I understand it could be uncomfortable for some. It could be controversial, I understand it could be uncomfortable for some, but I hope that you would work past that and see it for the work, for the purpose of what it is, which is to enable you to have a closer walk, a better understanding of the true nature of Elohim, the full nature of God, the whole nature of God. And so my prayer for you is that the words that you say, the things that you read, will lead you into a closer walk, a transformative walk with Elohim. So I bless you in Yeshua's name, amen.
