(Written
by Sheila Gail Landgraf)
God created time. He placed the sun, the moon and the stars in the sky as signs to mark our time. He is outside of time, but He placed us inside of time. He speaks to us of time through the heavenly bodies of the sun and the moon, and He has written His story out for us in the skies.
When He created time, God appointed certain times and seasons for us to come closer to Him.
God created these special sacred times so that we could better understand His ways and to make it easier for us to commune with Him.
He uses these special sacred times to tell us who He is, why He created us, and how we should worship. He also gives us glimpses of our future destiny in His Kingdom through these special sacred times.
THE WEEKLY SABBATH
The first special sacred time God set aside for us is called The Sabbath. It occurs every seven days. God made six days in which we are to work, and He made one day in which we are to rest. This one day in seven is The Sabbath. It is a special gift God made just for us. Every seven days God gives us this special gift of a sacred set-apart time with Him. He has asked us to put our work aside and to rest with Him. Like all good Fathers, God likes to have quality time with his children. The Sabbath is our quality time with our heavenly Father. God showed this to Adam and Eve in the garden at the beginning of time. They in turn taught their children, and people have been keeping Sabbath ever since.
Sometimes various human people have tried to change the days God sanctified and use another day of the week for the 7th day; but God always pointed out the correct day as history progressed so that we would not be confused. He wanted us to keep THE day. He sanctified it and called it Sabbath. It was not up to us to change the day. It was God's decision. It was His gift to us, not our gift to Him. The Jewish people have always kept this day. We can trust their calendar, because God has used them to keep the calendars straight for the rest of us.
God clarified this with the children of Israel in the wilderness when he rained down the manna from heaven for six days. On the sixth day only they could gather double portions for the next day and keep it fresh for two days. On any other day if they gathered more than they needed it would spoil. The manna did not fall on the seventh day. God was at rest and so were those who followed Him. The people ate the manna gathered on the sixth day and they rested with God. It was a day of rest and a day of worship; a special sacred space in time, set apart from the other days of the week. This pattern of how the manna fell allowed men to once again know how to exactly keep the seventh day so that they never lost count of the proper seventh day again. Ever since those days in the wilderness the faithful Jewish culture has been careful to keep the days accurate with God's calendar. We can easily trace back to the proper times in history and trace back forward again to be sure.
The other special sacred times come in their appointed seasons. There are special set-apart days in the spring, in the summer and in the fall.
God gave us the moon to help us track these days correctly. It was as if God said: "I'll hang a big watch in the sky so you all can tell time by it," and he created the moon with its phases. By the phases of the moon we know exactly when one day ends and another begins; we know when spring has begun, and we can tell when God's special appointed times arrive by counting the phases of the moon. God made the phases of the moon correspond exactly to the days He wanted us to keep in the spring, summer and fall seasons.
When you truly come to be a child of God you drop all of the world's dividers; those of race, nationality, language, culture or religious laws
There is now only one way that is open, workable and clear to you; it is the way of The Lord. The main rule is love and the way to the best ways to live in love, grace and mercy are all spelled out in the holy scriptures. You must study to show yourself approved. This is exactly how we come to know of God's Holy Days.
THE HOLY DAYS OF GOD
With spring comes the sacred season of Passover. Passover incorporates three holy, sacred times; beginning with the days of Passover itself, then the seven days of Unleavened Bread which follow, and within the Days of Unleavened Bread we find The Feast of First Fruits.
With summer comes the sacred season called Pentecost. We come to Pentecost by counting the omer. It is always 50 days from the Day of First Fruits after Passover. This day of Pentecost represents the late harvest, especially the wheat harvest, and the giving of The Holy Spirit to God’s people.
With Fall comes the sacred season of the Fall Holy Days which are: The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hashanah), The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and The Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot.)
It is true that we no longer have a physical Temple inside Jerusalem to go up to, but did Jesus not explain that the new temple would be Him living through His Holy Spirit within our bodies? So, we do have a temple left on this earth; hence that is no excuse.
If you are a believer, The Temple of your body is now the habitation of God. Your own physical body with your soul residing inside with God's Spirit is your holy temple. The tent of your body houses The Holy Spirit of God. Is that not an awesome thought to ponder?
There is that fact so many people are hung up on which proclaims that God told the people to go up to Jerusalem to celebrate these feasts. That was because the Temple was in Jerusalem! Now the temple resides within the believers who have The Holy Spirit dwelling inside them. There is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore! We are the Body of Christ. We are the Temple folks. We must keep the days that were meant to be kept at The Temple. The Temple now goes with us everywhere that we go. It is no longer confined just to Jerusalem, though our hearts still love Jerusalem. Jesus has made this easy. We no longer have to travel far away to a building. We are living, breathing and walking around in The Sanctuary of The Most High God. It cost us absolutely nothing to go to the temple. It is the gift of God's Holy Spirit that has made this miracle happen. Jesus first died for us, rose from the grave for us and then went away from us in order to make this possible. He sent the comforter. We have no excuse for not keeping the days, we have everything that we need. Jesus has explained this to us in a million different ways all through the new testament scriptures.
You should not have to be a Christian worshiping with a Messianic congregation in order to keep these days. Messianic congregations were originally conceived to help Jewish people become Christian, not to help Christian people become Jewish. The Church was originally set up to house all those who believed in The Messiah and God the Father. It is shameful that the church has decayed into this state, that we must divide off into groups to worship the same God!
The ways of God and His Holy Days are clearly spelled out in the Old Testament and New Testament of the Christian bible. What excuse will we give when we stand face to face with God? Why do we feel we can cut out almost one third of the bible as if it doesn't exist and ignore it?
God's church should begin to recognize ALL of the holy scriptures and teach and keep the days that God gave to us. The fact that our great, great grandfathers got off track is no excuse for us to stay off track. The fact that we have allowed ourselves to become a business instead of a body is no excuse. We should not be calling ourselves Christians and doing just the opposite of what God has clearly proclaimed in the scriptures. If Jesus returned tomorrow, would He see even one of the customs He taught us to follow being carried out within our congregations that proclaim His name? I wonder?
These days are a great gift that Our Father has bestowed on all of His people to be celebrated throughout all generations. They are one of the greatest ways of all to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others. We should not have to separate ourselves from ourselves in order to keep God's commandments and enjoy His gifts to us. Do you not realize there will be no denominations in heaven? God will not say "all Baptist must answer to this and all Methodist must answer to that and all Catholics must check off this list and all Presbyterians must check off that list! God will simply look at each of us individually and ask "Why have you not obeyed the Holy Scriptures? Did you not read the book I sent to you? "
All who believe on the Name of God should always be welcomed within the family of God, whether you were born of the specific race which God used to start his family, or whether you were adopted into the family after the family was formed. All are the same here inside The House of God. God loves each and every one of the children He created. God has given His gifts to ALL of His children and He expects all of His children to learn and understand and practice them.
God gave certain patterns that show how He wished His Holy Days to be kept, observed and celebrated. He gave them to the nation of Israel first. He made these instructions specific to the people of Israel in the days of Moses. Two of these tribes of Israel (Benjamin and Judah) are known today as The Jews. These two tribes have been faithful to keep
God’s Holy Days for years and years and years; but they fail to see how The Messiah has come and has already fulfilled
the Spring and Summer Feast Days. They keep the spring holy days year after year with blinders on. They keep the Summer
Holy Day of Pentecost also; but once again fail to see how this day as well as the Fall Holy Days are pointing to the
return of Christ. For them, the fall
days are just a glimpse of the very first time they will ever know the Messiah.
Some of both sides of this equation are true. We who know He has already come will see Him coming again one day, and at that time they who have never known Him will know He is The Messiah. For us it will be the second time. For them it will be the first time. All will know in the end, and we will finally be united in our faith in God, Our Father.
We will not trouble the Jewish people about this right now. We will let God open their eyes in His good time. We will love them until that happens, and we will forever be grateful for the gifts they have saved up for our learning. We will always recognize that God chose them of all people to become the nation who bore The Messiah. The day will come when God will open their eyes just as He is now opening the eyes many of the Gentiles to the truths they are learning about keeping the holy days these Jewish people have kept for so many generations. They did not trouble us about learning these days. They let us learn in God's good time. With the fullness of knowing The Messiah, our blessing is very great.
God usually goes about doing things a little different than we would. He knows more about us than we know about ourselves, after all; He created us! He knows how we learn best; and He knows how to bring the circumstances about that teach us better ways. We must simply love one another until that time of unity arrives and trust Him for these answers in His own good timing. Let us pray as we wait that all people who believe in God will come to know The Messiah.
Ten of the tribes of those first Israelites which God announced the details of His Holy Days to were scattered around the earth as lost little lambs. They were separated from the other two tribes and the ways of their people by assimilation because of the sudden rule of a very powerful culture who captured them and ruled over them. These assimilated people of the lost ten tribes are now known as The Gentiles. They lost their identity as Israelites when they were separated and isolated from each other. Over time their ancestors have come to populate all corners of the earth. The teachings of God were lost from them for many, many years. They had no way of knowing and remembering all of the details of the Holy Days of God while they lived in a foreign culture that separated them from each other for so long.
Because of being removed from what they knew of God, most of the Gentiles today, though they believe in Messiah, fail to see the importance of keeping God’s Holy Days and they have fallen into the trap of keeping the days that were made up later by greedy pagan men claiming to know God who were only using religion to rule and unite their own kingdoms instead of God's Kingdom. These rulers, using the name of God in vain, changed dates and times. They created new customs that worked better for their causes and their own ruling governments. To persuade people to follow them they simply incorporated some of the stories of God that the people remembered into their own proclaimed dates and celebrations, luring them into a false sense of security. This is one of those times when a little bit of knowledge can be dangerous. These greedy rulers deceived many, many people into a whole different way of celebrating holy days and worshiping God. The whole picture of what God had laid out carefully to the Hebrew people originally was not even considered.
There remains to this day an element of truth in all of those days made by men, but they are counterfeit days, not the original days that God gave for observance.
One day every one will see all of the truth because The Messiah will be physically with us and He will proclaim the truth in person directly to everyone living in His Kingdom. All of God's Holy Days point to and lead up to that wonderful end.
Thank God for the faithful meticulous way the Jewish culture has recorded and kept with accuracy and precision these most awesome Holy Days of God. We Gentiles can learn much truth from them and our understanding is heightened and we can worship in a more pure sense of knowing and observing the true story. Because of them, we may know the truth of the history of the children of God and the words God gave directly to them in the scriptures regarding these special set apart days of God.
Because of the faithful Gentile believers of Jesus Christ, the Jewish people too may come to know a truth that they have not yet been taught. Through the Gentiles they will learn the Good News of The Messiah, the One these days point to, the One who will fulfill every part of the knowledge of these days. These special, holy, set apart and appointed days should be the key that unlocks this for them.
Iron sharpens iron; God works in mysterious ways, always bringing His plan about in a supernatural surprising array of events beyond our wildest imaginations. He has used the truth each group has learned separately to be a light bearer to the other.
One day all eyes will be opened at the same time and we will all see the whole picture as a very beautiful tapestry that God has been weaving for all eternity. In the meantime; as we are all growing and changing every day, God has used each culture to teach the other. He has used the Gentile culture to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Jews. Though they for some odd reason have not always known of or observed the beautiful rich background of the holy days that are shadows of all the teachings of Christ. The Gentiles simply believed in The Messiah by faith, and God counts this unto them for righteousness because of the blood of Christ shed on the cross for all sins. God has in turn used the Jewish culture to teach the Gentiles His original ways of worship.
Blessed are the followers of Christ from both cultures who already have open eyes to see all of the truth from the scriptures, who can celebrate their time the way God has sanctified it from the beginning of the world. Their days will be joyful and full of God’s stories! Their hearts will always be full; even in the worst of circumstances. Their stories will spread and fill the earth until all come to see The Messiah is Jesus Christ.
Thanks be to God who has given us such beautiful and significant holy days which teach us all about our beginning, middle and end times as we walk through His Kingdom in faith.
Because He has proclaimed these days before us and guarded them through a chosen people, we have come to know the hope of His Son and we have come to see there is hope for our own sons who follow Him and keep His ways.
If you have The Holy Spirit residing within your heart, you will eventually find the path of God that leads you into the joyful celebration of your own destiny in the observance of God's Holy Days in light of His Son, Our Messiah, Jesus Christ.
May your journey be delightful and full of God's glory!
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