SEASONS ELUL AND THE FALL FEAST DAYS OF 2016

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

We are now living in the time period of the Hebrew month of Elul.  It is the last month of the sacred year, just before the first month of Tishri when we celebrate The Fall Holy Days of God.  I am a Christian that wasn't born Jewish, yet I chose to  celebrate these Holy Days because I noticed in my bible that God called them HIS Holy Days.  He is my God.  I try my best to live like Him though I fail miserably; so I set aside and celebrate His days with Him.

Notice He doesn't say "the Holy Days of the Israelites" even though He was speaking to the Israelites when He first commanded that these days be kept.  He chose the Israelites to be the first people who laid out the patterns of days that He created for feast and festivals.  Through them, the rest of us may come to know the fullness of truth. 

The first people of God (the Israelites) were great at preserving history, and preserving

His-story.     Anyone following God earnestly may study these observances and keep this beautiful intricate pattern of times He has so precisely sketched out in the scriptures.  Read about the end times and you will come to agree that these days do not belong to a certain people or group; they simply belong to the God of the Israelites.  This is the same God that I worship as a Christian.  He loves everyone.  He is not stingy.  God loves everyone and provides a way for everyone who desires to come into His Kingdom.  Don't get this backwards.  It is about you coming to Him and His ways, not Him changing to fit into your little world.  I am speaking of His Holy Days, not MY days or the Christian's days, or the Jewish days, or the Israelites's days; but God's days.

God did chose the Jewish people as the people who would live out the original pattern and keep and tell His story to the world.  He honored them by letting His Son who chose to be born of flesh to save the world share in their heritage.  What an honor they have been given!   What a loving task they have undertaken to preserve the days.  I have so much respect for how faithful they have been through every generation to honor God with the knowledge they have been given.  Also, what a blessing for Christians to be able to look upon the lessons of these days kept through generations and generations and see the story of Jesus Christ in each season and day.    

When you read about these days you eventually begin to understand that the Hebraic people use many different types of calendars for many different reasons for dates in each passing year.  One calendar is for recording sacred times, another is for recording civil dates.  The number and name of the month you are in  depends on which calendar you are reading.  For instance, the seventh month and the first month are the same period of time on two different calendars when you refer to the scripture passages; one month named is simply the calendar for measuring civil days and one month named is simply the calendar for measuring sacred time.  Both speak of the same time and days in different numerical sequences that start and end at different places.  

Leviticus 23:2 says: Speak to the Israelites and say to them: 'These are my appointed festivals, the appointed festivals of the LORD, which you are to proclaim as sacred assemblies.


God goes on in this passage to name seven feast and/or festival days that He desires to be kept.  Four of these special times are in the spring and summer, those four are Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost.  The other three days come in the Fall. 

Here are some of the scriptures that proclaim how we should keep these Fall Feast Days of God:  The times are calculated by the phases of the moon unlike the commonly used calendar which calculates time by the phases of the sun.

FOR ROSH HASHANAH/FEAST OF TRUMPETS: In 2016 - From sunset Sunday, October 2nd through sunset Tuesday, October 4th:


Leviticus 23:24:  "Say to the Israelites: 'On the first day of the seventh month (the first month if you are reading the sacred calendar) you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.

FOR YOM KIPPER/DAY OF ATONEMENT: 2016 from sunset Tuesday, October 11 through sunset Wednesday, October 12th.

Leviticus 23:26-28:  The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month (it is the seventh month of the Hebraic civil calendar and the first month of the Hebraic sacred calendar) is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the LORD.  Do not do any work on that day, because it is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made for you before the LORD your God.

FOR SUKKOT/FEAST OF TABERNACLES: 2016 from sunset Sunday, October 16th through sunset Sunday, October 23rd, with the Great Last Day ( the eighth day) being on Monday, October 24th.  

Leviticus 23:33-37:  Again the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, "Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, 'On the fifteenth of this seventh month (the seventh civil month and the first sacred month) is the Feast of Booths for seven days to the LORD.  On the first day is a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work of any kind.  For seven days you shall present an offering by fire to the LORD. On the eighth day you shall have a holy convocation and present an offering by fire to the LORD; it is an assembly. You shall do no laborious work.  For seven days present food offerings to the LORD, and on the eighth day hold a sacred assembly and present a food offering to the LORD. It is the closing special assembly; do no regular work.

The official names for these days are not mentioned in the passage above, but they have come to be called Rosh Hashanah (The Feast of Trumpets), Yom Kipper (The Day of Atonement) and Sukkot (The Feast of Tabernacles.) 

With Rosh Hashanah and the Days of Awe (the ten days leading up to Yom Kippur), we enter the new Hebrew month of Tishri, and we also enter a new year on the Hebraic sacred calendar.  Right now though, in Elul we are leading up to these very holy days.  It is a time of getting ready, a time to prepare, a time to think and meditate about the things in your life over the last year.  It is a time to be making amends with your fellow man and a time to be making repentance before God. It is a time for planning for both serious days and festive days to be spent with God.

You can't end a year properly in just one day.  Cleaning up the trail of sins of over a year takes a lot of time, meditation, thought, prayer, and asking forgiveness.  You've had a whole year to make mistakes, to sin, to offend your brothers and sisters.  It will take awhile to remember it all and confess it all. Yes, Jesus Christ has forgiven us for our sins, past, present and future, but He wants us to wash our feet from the journey.  He wants to hear the condition of our hearts as we go from one year of our lives unto the next.  He wants to atone our sins on The Day of Atonement and help us to stand before God lifting holy hands at The Feast of Tabernacles.  He has presented pattern of holy worship to be followed by showing us the feast days.

Of course you can go ahead and take care of this in YOUR OWN WAY and YOUR OWN

TIME every day of your life and keep short accounts with God.   That would be great, if we all were perfect, but honestly, have you done this?  I don't think many would be able to answer yes to that question.  You might have done SOME of it SOME of the time, but have you done a thorough job of it?  If you have, good, your a great exception to the rest of us sinners, but you MIGHT need to look into the subject of self-righteousness a bit.....  Even if you have done a perfect job of it, you still need to take time to stop and examine things GOD'S WAY in GOD'S TIME.  

During Elul we should all set the time aside to ponder and talk with God about where our lives are going and what God has in store for us in the future.  We should all learn to consider how we are living into that picture.  

Be especially sure to take this precious time to listen to God and consider what needs to change in your days.  If you simply take the time out to listen and pray you might be amazed at what you will hear God speaking to your heart.  Hebraic legend has it that God is walking the earth, searching out the hearts of those that He loves, watching, waiting on them to turn and return to Him and His ways. The scriptures speak of how He looks at each of us with loving eyes, because we are all beloved of Him.  He wants us to speak to Him.  He wants us to repent, to change, to turn, to see what is right and learn to follow those ways.  

Maybe you didn't intend to commit a certain sin, and maybe it is all a misunderstanding or a mistake, but you now have this whole month to consider the matter.  You can think it through.  You have time to reconsider what you COULD have done right and to examine the ways to do this right the next time in the year that is to come.  God is not looking to see that you are a perfectly oiled machine performing without missing a beat; No!  He is looking at your heart to see if it is willing to change for the good, to show love and compassion, to be willing to adjust for the good of the Kingdom.    Isn't that great?  

We have all of the month of Elul to get our thoughts straight and clean out the cobwebs

forming around our hearts from sins of the year gone by.   We can take this time to go to our fellow man and make amends, however that needs to be done.  Ask God, He will tell you.    We can go to God to ask forgiveness afterwards.  If we have approached your brothers with the right attitude and true apologies, we can be sure God will blot our sins out of His book and remember them no more.

Yom Kipper is coming.  By Yom Kippur we need to have confessed all of our sins and have spent time with God in communion listening for His sure instructions for our lives and getting ourselves back on track if we have taken a wrong turn or gone a wrong way.  By Yom Kippur, God will seal the state of our hearts for the year we have just past.  He will decide whether to let us go on, or whether we have reached the end of our heart's capacity for growth and maturity.  All Christians should be constantly renewing their spirits before God and participating in the process of rebirth and new life.  

Why is Yom Kippur so holy and why do you need to be so ready?  Because the most precious blood ever was sacrificed to save us all, and this is the day that the atonement of that blood is made in the tabernacle of heaven for the sins of the year.  We have been SAVED by grace and we are ATONED every year, like washing your feet when you have been on a long dusty journey.  We must clean the parts of us that we have soiled on the journey.  It is the most important day in the Christian calendar.  It is when atonement is applied to our sins.  The perfect sacrifice of Jesus has been made once for all.  No more sacrifice is necessary.  You simply need to ask God to apply atonement for your sins this year before Yom Kipper.  God will apply the atonement for you if you have confessed your sins and taken all the steps possible to rectify your sins.  When Jesus saved you, He sent The Holy Spirit into your heart and the Holy Spirit will put this longing inside of you, to always be pure before God.  Through the sacrifice of Jesus and the working of God's Holy Spirit within you, God will continue to give you the gift of being clean before Him as you begin the next sacred year.

The perfect blood of Jesus will blot your sins out of the book of remembrance and they will

be remembered no more.  If you haven't accumulated sins on your account since last Yom Kippur, I would venture to say; you are not human.  God knows how we are; He made us.  He gives us a way to atone.  He gave us the greatest gift of all, His very own Son, Jesus Christ.   All you have to do is ask God with a true and sincere heart and believe in the miracle of the sacrifice of Jesus that has been offered freely for your atonement.  You can start the year out and stand clean before your maker on Yom Kipper. 

In the days before Jesus a new sacrifice had to be offered in an earthly temple every year for the sins of the people.  A High Priest, totally prepared in advance for the special day.  He would stand in the Holy of Holies, himself being totally clean, wearing clean and appropriate clothes and make atonement for himself and the people through the lighting of the menorah, the burning of the incense and finally the offering of 15 different sacrifices. He would sprinkle the blood of a red heifer on the altar.  If the sins of the people were forgiven the white cloth that was tied to the priest would turn red.  This is what Jesus does for us now, He intercedes with God for atonement.  This is the whole meaning behind Yom Kippur.  One day our Jewish friends who haven't discovered that Jesus is Messiah will believe and come to accept this.  Christians must accept it NOW.  This is the day that God has proclaimed that you come before Him with holy hands and thankful and humble hearts.  

Growing up Baptist, it took me years to get this.  I could read the scriptures and see the

words, but other words were screaming back to me and confusing my thoughts about them.  The words were not really confusing though, it was the author of confusion, that old devil that is always working against the kingdom of God that was causing the confusion.  He was using confused people to create chaos in the simple order that God laid out so long ago, preserved through the Israelites, and had faithful scribes record in the holy scriptures.  Today I find that many of the Baptist denomination have come to understand the significance of these days too!  As for me; I simply had to let God re-teach me.  I simply started keeping the fall holy days and honoring the once for all of Christ on The Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur.)  Each year, layer upon layer, God taught me more and more of the concept straight from the holy scriptures until I came to the point of the journey I'm on today, where I set aside time to think, meditate, pray, confess and repent both to God and to my fellowman during the month of Elul. I am always confident of my salvation (salvation is not the issue at Yom Kippur; but confession of sins is a way to honor God and show that we hold the precious blood of Jesus as sacred and powerful to wash away our sins forever), at Yom Kippur I am simply washing my feet for the year, removing the sins of the dusty journey of 365 more days on the earth.  On the sacred day, I want to wear white robes that are not sin stained as I stand in holy worship.  Jesus did this for me.  I honor and respect this.  I do not take it for granted.  I want to have clean feet, this is accomplished with the washing of the days of Awe and Elul.   It is comparable to Jesus washing the feet of the disciples before the Passover meal.  I've found observing Yom Kippur in its fullness is refreshing and good for my soul.  I have more of an awareness of God's Kingdom constantly growing and working in the world.  Now, I see why God so wisely laid out these days for us to follow forever.       

So I observe Elul, The Feast of Trumpets, The Days of Awe, The Day of Atonement and finally The joyful days of The Feast of Tabernacles each year during the fall feast days of God.  I did not go into The Feast of Tabernacles here, but will save it for another blog.  It is the last and most joyful Fall Holy Day period.    It is an awesome way to end the sacred year, and keeping these other days first prepares my heart to receive all the joy it holds.

SEASONS GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS KEEPING THE SABBATH

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

Do you keep God's Holy Days?  If so, you must start with The Sabbath.    It is a most sacred time.  The Sabbath is God's gift to mankind.  It is a precious gift that should not ever be overlooked.

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 7^th 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

and you trust in God's greatest law of love to settle your differences. 

 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.)

There are also other days I will not mention here that man has set aside to honor as memorials of great events that God brought about; but the days above are the specific Holy Days God commanded His people to keep.  They are God’s days; and they do not belong to any specific culture or region of people.  They were given and sanctified by God specifically to anyone who wishes to follow Him and celebrate His way of life.  Does your church congregation keep these holy days?  God has not revoked them, even though He has fulfilled the spring and summer days; all the more reason to remember them!  If God fulfilled the Spring and Summer days, will He not eventually fulfill the Fall days?  We should be watching, studying and waiting to see what God is going to do next!

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!