Learn with host Robin Kirby-Gatto, how your mountains can be flattened as you grow strong in spirit. The grace of God is made known within the soul as you face your obstacles and see leadership opportunities.
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Welcome to Celebrating God’s Grace, A Women World Leader’s Podcast, I’m your host Robin Kirby-Gatto.
Thank you for joining us today as we celebrate God’s grace, in our lives, in our ministry, and around the world.
Today’s message is titled “The Mountain Shall Become a Plain.”
God’s grace flattens our mountain into a molehill, a plain.
“For who are you, O great mountain [of human obstacles]? Before Zerubbabel [who with Joshua had led the return of the exiles from Babylon and was undertaking the rebuilding of the temple, before him] you shall become a plain [a mere molehill]! And he shall bring forth the finishing gable stone [of the new temple] with loud shoutings of the people, crying, Grace, grace to it.” (Zechariah 4:7 AMPC)
Zerubbabel, the rightful governor of God’s people, was released with the first wave of exiles from captivity to return to Jerusalem. The task given to him by God was the rebuilding of the temple. He had a ginormous undertaking. Resistance surrounded Zerubbabel on every end, as others opposed him. Moreover, the people of Jerusalem were so distracted by building their own houses, that they disregarded the rebuilding of God’s house. No different from Nehemiah, who rebuilt the wall, Zerubbabel had to be both a leader and builder.
Many of our mountains are leadership opportunities, as well as building moments. We’re given the gift of leading, as we allow God’s grace to bring freedom to our self-image, thereby building others up.
What does this process of being built up in our self-image look like? It’s maturing in the knowledge of Christ Jesus, which is known as growing stronger in spirit. John the Baptist grew strong in the spirit in Luke 1:80, and Jesus Christ grew strong in the spirit in Luke 2:40.
Growing strong in spirit means that we understand God’s truth by grace, and not through our own works. God’s grace is His ability that shows us our need for Him, whereby we receive supernatural sufficiency.
As I mentioned in my last broadcast # 345, I had a world of hurt in my soul from my prior marriage. It shook my world, and I had to deal with tough questions about who I was. What is it that I wanted to do for a career, as a parent, and what were my dreams in life?
Hard times will do this to you, taking you to a microscopic level of the soul, assessing your ability to move forward and to walk in the impossible dreams of God for your life. If everything was easy, we wouldn’t need God. It takes the hard moments in life, to wake us up to who we really are.
This is what Zerubbabel was experiencing, a hard moment in life, to wake him up to the fact that he was the rightful ruler of God’s people. He had to lead God’s people and rebuild the temple.
It was already a difficult task to lead a massive group of people, much less inspire them to rebuild the temple. It’s the impossible assignments that God calls us to, during the times we feel so insufficient, that He gets us past our quit so that we grow strong in spirit. Before you begin an assignment, without realizing it, God has already gotten you past the place where you would totally quit it, by preparing you in the former place you’ve been, to face your mountain. This is a picture of obtaining grace. Grace flattens your mountain like a pancake into a plain.
The Hebrew word for plain is mîyshôwr pronounced mee-shore’ meaning, “a level, a plain, equity, even place, right, righteously, made straight and uprightness.”[i] This word might be difficult to comprehend in relation to Zerubbabel’s circumstance, so I want to introduce you to the ancient Hebrew symbols, in which the original first five books of the Bible were written. There are twenty-two Hebrew Aleph-Bet letters, beginning with Aleph, where we get our A from, and the Greek gets Alpha. It was during the time of captivity that the ancient symbols were modernized to the squared-off Hebrew letters we know today.
Each of the Hebrew letters in the ancient symbols has a meaning, which when brought together with other Hebrew letters, composes a word picture. You know the saying “a picture is worth a thousand words,” that’s what the word picture does with the ancient symbols, providing us with a richer understanding. Jesus taught in parables because it gave His hearers a picture, as the Word of Truth was amplified within the soul, to understand God’s ways. Proverbs 25:2 says that it is the “glory of God to conceal a matter, and the glory of kings to search it out.”
Let’s look at the ancient symbols for the word plain, which means “to make something level.” I’ve used ancient Hebrew symbols, in my messages and books, for a decade, which many readers have thoroughly enjoyed. The Hebrew letters for plain are Mem, Yood, Sheen, Vav, and Resh. The ancient symbol for Mem is a picture of water, like our “M” with three humps instead of two, and means, massive in the positive, as well as flooding, and chaos in the negative. Yood is the ancient symbol of an arm at work and means works, make, and deed. Sheen is the ancient symbol of jagged teeth, like a “W,” and means consume in the positive and devour in the negative. Vav is the ancient symbol of a tent peg or nail and means to add and secure. Finally, Resh is the ancient symbol of a man’s face and means, head, highest, and person. If we put all these letters together for plain, we get the word picture THE WORKS THAT MASSIVELY CONSUME US ARE ADDED TO OUR PERSON.
Think about this for a moment. It is a different viewpoint from which to look at the meaning of God’s grace. God’s grace levels every mountain in our life, as we are flooded with His works, knowing that He has called us to His hope and future, where we do the task at hand in His strength and ability. Therefore, grace is God’s strength added to our soul, to see and do the impossible. Sometimes, forgiveness seems impossible, but by God’s grace, we can forgive. Doing a new job to which we feel overwhelmed and deficient seems impossible, but with God’s strength, we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus.
The mountain that must be conquered, is within the human soul. As you conquer the mountain inside of your soul, which is the way you see yourself, everything is made straight and clear before you. You can see and enter what God has called you to do in this life.
Zerubbabel was familiar with being governor over God’s people while in captivity, but to lead them to Jerusalem and rebuild the temple, was a whole other level of leadership. Each mountain that we face in life, makes us better leaders. Zerubbabel had different mountains while in captivity, before going to Jerusalem. It was the mountains in his captivity that prepared him for Jerusalem.
The mountains we face in this life come down by the grace of God that we experience within the soul. The Hebrew word for grace is chên pronounced khane meaning, “graciousness, beauty, favor, grace, pleasant, precious and well-favored.”[ii] We obtain God’s favor beyond our personal endeavors, as He cloaks us in the right standing of Christ Jesus, obtaining and doing that, which we don’t deserve. Grace is not the result of our goodness, but the knowledge we have of our insufficiency and weakness, it is us knowing our needs and getting His help.
As a parent, I did things for my sons, that they couldn’t do for themselves. I dressed them when they were babies, drove them to daycare and school, bought and cooked their meals, and so forth. I gave them a life they couldn’t get on their own. This is what grace is a picture of. We see this in the ancient Hebrew letters that compose the word for grace, which are Chet and Nun. Chet is the ancient symbol of a fence as well as a chamber and means to separate and secret place. Nun is the ancient symbol of a fish swimming through the water and means life and activities. Therefore, the word picture for grace is BEING SEPARATED IN THE SECRET PLACE TO THE ACTIVITIES OF LIFE. The secret place of the heart is where we’re navigated into the abundant life that Christ Jesus came to bring. This is grace.
Like a mother dressing her infant, driving them to the daycare, or getting food to cook a meal, God’s grace is where we grow strong in spirit. We let God be God. This is what Zerubbabel came to know when he began rebuilding the temple.
In Zechariah 4:6 Holy Scripture states
“Then he said to me, This [addition of the bowl to the candlestick, causing it to yield a ceaseless supply of oil from the olive trees] is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying, Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit [of Whom the oil is a symbol], says the Lord of hosts.” (Zechariah 4:6 AMPC)
The prophet Zechariah proclaimed the Word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, which was, the work at hand would be finished by the Spirit of God. Zerubbabel would be able to rest in the fact that his insufficiency, was merely the opportunity for God to show Himself as the All-Sufficient One.
What things are you doing in your own strength? What weaknesses do you need to acknowledge? Where is it that you need to grow in leadership in the present trial? Growing strong in spirit removes the mountain that’s in your soul and makes your path straight into your destiny, as you go in grace.
Join me on the next broadcast, to see the power of mountain-moving faith.
The assignment of the impossible was the mountain before Zerubbabel. He couldn’t do the lead and build in his own strength, but only i
[i] Strong’s Concordance Hebrew word # 4334 “plain”
[ii] Strong’s Concordance Hebrew word # 2580 “grace”