Noach, Yetzer Hara, and VICTORY!
CALL YOURSELF (ONLY) WHAT G-D CALLS YOU (PROCLAIM/CALL OUT/RECITE).
Are you?
VICTORIUS ATTITUDE comes from our ‘yetzer hatov’ (GOOD/properly functioning inclination).
DEFEATIST ATTITUDE comes from our ‘yetzer hara’ (evil/dysfunctional inclination).
Expounded from this thought in Genesis from this week’s Torah Portion ‘Noach’…
YETZER is a ‘framework, purpose, and mindset’. We have TWO [since we ‘ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of GOOD (tov) and EVIL (ra)]. Double-mindedness is now the norm, but was never G-d’s Purpose. HE TEACHES US what to do with it…
What are we to do, then…practically speaking? In TWO WORDS:
CHOOSE(to agree with) LIFE!!! (Paul spoke of this in Romans 7!)
ADONAI told Cain ‘ACCOMPLISH GOOD…then you will hold your head high!’ (Genesis 4:7) This is YOU TRAINING your YETZER HARA to GET IN LINE with The Most High. (Instead of your yetzer hara training you!)
LAQACH: A Hebrew ‘VICTORY’ Word!
PRIDE (disagreement with ‘IT IS WRITTEN’) keeps us from TASTING/SEEING/AGREEING/PROCLAIMING/BECOMING…
The antidote to PRIDE is not thinking LESS OF YOURSELF; it’s THINKING OF YOURSELF LESS.
PRIDE isn’t just ‘the haughty eye’ (pr. 6). PRIDE is not agreeing in word/thought/deed with your CREATOR, The Great I Am, and His Word over and ‘for’ you.
Everyday we need to LAQACH – go out and seize! – The WORD of INSTRUCTIVE CORRECTION (musar) to battle against ‘all things that have exalted themselves against the Knowledge of G-d’.
Laqach: to seize, take in the hand, carry off, capture, TO MARRY (yourself to)
TO RECEIVE is not a ‘passive pouring into’…it is AN ACT OF INTENTIONAL SEIZING of something that required premeditation: laqach (meaning to go forth and seize, fetch, take hold of…it’s the SAME WORD in Hebrew for ‘to marry’). So in retrieving anything whether GOOD (wisdom, musar, wife!) or BAD, is to MARRY YOURSELF TO IT.
Quite literally, the way to ‘take every thought CAPTIVE to the obedience of Christ’ IS to CAPTURE A WORD FROM THE MOST HIGH for yourself: Every. Single. Day.
3For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, 4for the weapons of our
5 warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are
destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and
we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, – 2 Cor. 10
Now there is another Hebrew word from the same root, LEQACH, meaning simply ‘doctrine, persuasiveness, learning, and teaching’ used 9x’s:
This is an important concept for us to understand because ANYTIME we have been in agreement with wrong, erroneous things like ‘I’ll never be good enough’ OR ‘I’m better than (insert class, color, or gender), etc.’. Understand that WE HAVE ALREADY BEEN INDOCTRINATED INTO THIS WORLD’S WAY OF SEEING, SAYING, DOING, AND THINKING.
In other words, something erroneous (exalting itself against the Knowledge of G-d) has ‘captured’ us. The only way it loosens its grip on us is when we ACTIVELY GO FORTH AND CAPTURE A WORD FROM THE MOST HIGH G-D.
It is the will of all enemies that we remain weak and ill equipped in the Battlefield of the mind. BUT, it is G-d’s DELIGHT that we TAKE UP HIS (S)WORD IN VICTORY.
We need to increasingly EXPLORE and AGREE with ‘It Is Written’. Hand over the yetzer hara to ADONAI ELOHEINU. His RUACH of EMET corrects and sanctifies our framework…’for we have the MIND OF MESSIAH’ (1 Corinthians 2:16) PROVIDED WE KEEP RECEIVING HIS MIND/FRAMEWORK for our lives.
RECEIVE THE CORRECT DOCTRINE.
Understand. LAQACH! Taste. See. Agree. Proclaim! Become.
