God's Ruach

The following is not intended as an in-depth study. This is just a starting point in our attempt to gain better understanding and consider a bit of deeper thought regarding God's Ruach.

1) The Ruach was present and seems to have taken part in creation: 

Genesis 1:1-3 (KJV)  

1 In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. 2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light”: and there was light.     

2) When he was caught in grievous sin, King David wrote:   

Psalm 51:12-13 (TLV)

12 Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.13 Do not cast me from Your presence—take not Your Ruach ha-Kodesh from me.     

3) In a song of praise; the Psalmist says:

Psalm 104:30 (TLV)

30 You send forth Your Ruach—they are created, and You renew the face of the earth.    

4) In his testimony, the Apostle Matthew relays the event's which took place at Yeshua's baptism [mikvah] and how John the baptist saw the Ruach Hakodesh descending upon Yeshua as He came up out of the water.   

Matthew 3:16 (CJB)

16 As soon as Yeshua had been immersed, he came up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, he saw the Spirit of God coming down upon him like a dove, 17 and a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; I am well pleased with him.”   

5) In our graphic at the top of the page we have a Hebrew/Yiddish reference to Galatians 5:22,23. I'm adding vs. 19 - 23 here for clarity.

Galatians 5:19-23 (CJB)

 19 And it is perfectly evident what the old nature does. It expresses itself in sexual immorality, impurity and indecency;  20 involvement with the occult and with drugs; in feuding, fighting, becoming jealous and getting angry; in selfish ambition, factionalism, intrigue  21 and envy; in drunkenness, orgies and things like these. I warn you now as I have warned you before: those who do such things will have no share in the Kingdom of God!

22 But the fruit of the Spirit [Ruach] is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 humility, self control. Nothing in the Torah stands against such things.

Paul reveals a very stark contrast here between the fruit of the flesh and the fruit of the Ruach. A greater quantity and quality of this fruit of the Ruach is what we begin to produce as we come into the covenential relationship with God.

In Judaism, this idea is described as two opposing forces -- which God Himself has put inside of us. These forces are referred to as 1) the Godly spark (some say this is the Ruach) and 2) the evil inclination [eitser harah]. This fact may make some people upset, but just as He placed the Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the garden to create a choice for Adam and Eve, God has placed these two forces within every one of us. The presence of both of these elements are within us to present us with the same dilemma our progenitors faced in the garden in Eden.

1 Peter 2:11 (CJB)

Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and temporary residents not to give in to the desires of your "old nature" *(eitser harah/evil inclination?), which keep warring against you;

Romans 7:14, 15 (CJB)

14 For we know that the Torah is of (feeds or builds?) the Spirit; but as for me, I am bound to the old nature *(eitser harah [EH]?), sold to sin as a slave.  15 I don’t understand my own behavior — I don’t do what I want to do; instead, I do the very thing I hate! 

Romans 7:20-24 and 25b (CJB)

20 But if I am doing what “the real me” doesn’t want, it is no longer “the real me” doing it but the sin *(EH aka evil inclination?) housed inside me.  21 So I find it to be the rule, a kind of perverse “torah,” that although I want to do what is good, evil is right there with me!  22 For in my inner self I completely agree with God’s Torah *(statutes and decrees);  23 but in my various parts, I see a different “torah *(commands of the evil inclination?),” one that battles with the Torah in my mind and makes me a prisoner of sin’s “torah,” which is operating in my various parts. 24 What a miserable creature I am! ...

25b To sum up: with my mind, I am a slave of God’s Torah; but with my old nature, I am a slave of sin’s “Torah.”

James 1:12-15 (CJB)

13 No one being tempted should say, “I am being tempted by God.” For God cannot be tempted by evil, and God himself tempts no one. 14 Rather, each person is being tempted whenever he is being dragged off and enticed by the bait of his own desire *(evil inclination?). 15 Then, having conceived, the desire gives birth to sin; and when sin is fully grown, it gives birth to death. 

The choice for you and I boils down to deciding which of these elements we will feed. You see, how we spend our time and where we place our priorities "feeds" one or the other of these forces which reside within us. Our choices then become a cycle of feeding and craving. In other words, the more we feed these entities our devotion, time, energy -- the more we crave that kind of food: one leads to increased holiness and light; the other to inflated ego, lust and darkness; possibly, eventually giving way to complete debauchery. 

You will be controlled by one of these elements, so Our goal should be to purposely and faithfully "feed" our Godly spark every day. At the same time we have to begin to exercise control over our evil inclination; denying it the "food" it requires to maintain control over our desires and actions. the more committed to learning and fulfilling Gods will you become, the more momentum you will gain.