SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - 7 DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

SEVEN DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD

The 7 days of Unleavened Bread start on Passover and last for seven days.     These are special sacred times that God has set apart from other days.  In these days we remember that we are merely humans who have a tendency to sin, and that God does not like sin, and that we must put sin out of our lives in order to grow closer to God. On some years a lot of my Catholic friends are observing Lent during these times and I notice many similarities between the two observances.  This year the Hebraic calendar for Passover came later than the time of Lent.  I chose to take the path that Jesus took and observe the days of unleavened bread.
  

This is how we show that we are followers of Christ, by trying to remain sinless like Him.   I emphasize the word TRYING.  It is an impossible thing for any of us to achieve without Christ.  We cannot do this on our own, but we must always continue to make an effort with God’s help.   This shows our desire to be like Him.  He looks on the desires of our hearts.

When the Israelites escaped from Egyptian bondage they were in a hurry and took their bread dough with them before it had time to rise.  When they baked it the next day, it was unleavened bread.  The bread was course and not luxurious like leavened bread, but they ate it and thought of the freedom leaving the leaven behind had given to them.  When they considered this, they became joyful and thought it was the most wonderful bread they had ever tasted!

It is the same with us when we leave the leaven of sin behind in our old life and put on a new coat of the blood of Christ.  For awhile we will taste new things, but our appetite for the old things may yet remain with us.  In time we will come to appreciate the fact that we left sin behind and the taste of the new things of God will bring us much more pleasure and joy than the old things from the old life.

The exercise of physically removing leaven from our homes and our diets during these days helps us to remember to keep the proper perspective on what we really need in life, and what we must put behind us in order to move on in God's Kingdom.  Yes, we should do this all through the year, every day of our lives; but keeping these seven days helps us to be better focused on that fact.  It helps us to think in different ways than we would normally think.  God speaks to us during these days of who we are and where He is going to lead us next.  He reminds us of what we need to be putting into our lives and what we need to be taking out of our lives.  

We begin these days by remembering and celebrating the atoning blood of the lamb at Passover and recalling the atoning blood of Christ which God gave to cover all the sin that we humans cannot rid from ourselves.  It takes the blood of Christ to wash us clean.  That is the first step, just the beginning of an ongoing sanctification process in the life of any follower of Christ.  Once we are clean, it is good to focus on staying that way for as long as possible.  So each year we go through these ritual reminders of how we are cleaned by God and how He wishes us to try to stay that way.  Each year we should be growing and developing and getting better at this.  That is why we always want to consider the symbolism of Unleavened Bread and continue to constantly apply it properly to our own lives.  

The unleavened bread is called matzah.  There is much symbolism in the making of the matzah. Abstaining from the leaven is a picture of how God's people must be called to holiness and separate themselves from sin and become a holy people by constantly walking with God.   

So, obviously, to show our agreement with God about what is good for us, on the first day through the seventh day of unleavened bread we do not eat anything with leaven in it. We completely remove all leaven from our homes before the first day of this feast because the leaven is symbolic of sin.   This is to say to God that we want to put all sin away from us and we will try very hard to do this with God’s help.  Physically observing the spiritual principals here is a way of saying we will not just give lip service in our worship, but we will physically afflict our souls as a gesture to show that we are willing to do what is necessary to follow God.  This feast is considered a high Sabbath where no work is done on the first day and the seventh day, except for preparing food without leaven.       

It is yet another sacred time, seven more days that God set apart to help us remember that He desires for us not to sin.  In Exodus 12:17 this feast was declared to be a memorial feast to be kept forever.    

So off we go before Passover comes to clean our homes and sweep out all leaven.  It is an interesting exercise to see how much leaven has become hidden in the cracks and crevices of our homes, and it all relates as a very eye opening parallel to show us the sins we have buried and forgotten down  in the deepest darkest parts of our hearts.  We try to pull this out, to remove all that we have not noticed because we were not focused on ridding ourselves of sin and we have just over looked these things.  This  time of self-examination is the time to be rid of it!  God gives us a pause in time to consider these things and to help us to focus.  We must do our spiritual housecleaning!  It is important!  It is really more of a spiritual rather than a physical cleansing.    

When the leaven has been all cleaned out of our house, we have a special little ceremony with our children in which we search for any leaven that might have been missed in our cleaning.  When found, this overlooked leaven is quickly swept up with a feather  into a paper bag and burned.   The children see that this is like asking God to forgive your sins.  Their eyes are opened to the fact that sometimes there are sins we don’t even see.  We ask God to help us find those sins and to help us to put them away forever.  It is amazing how the innocent hearts of children will absorb these truths so much faster than adults do.  Our children teach us to love God with tender hearts.  We must be sure to teach them all they need to know about God's feast days. We must be careful to keep the symbols and fables of Spring with the bunnies and eggs and baskets of goodies in their proper place - as just pretty little spring things to play with, games that we do for fun, like hide and seek, and not a part of the gospel story at all.  There is nothing wrong with these things until we put pagan tags or practices on them, or try to make them appear to be Christian when they are not.  Children learn fast.  If you do not tell them the truth, they will eventually discover it themselves.  Much better coming from the older wiser generation so that they have people to look up to and trust for truth. 

These customs observed during the days of Unleavened Bread teach children true spiritual symbolism.  They must know the sacred things first and most, and it is up to us to teach them how to sort it all out.  They are counting on us to show them the way through God's Kingdom.  We will be blessed and they will be blessed, it is a double blessing on a household!

None of us are perfect.  We always miss something.  That is why God sent Jesus.  He atones for all sins that we commit, but our observance of these Days of Unleavened Bread expresses our desire to be more like Him and our desire to learn to overcome our sins.  Self control is a virtue and a godly trait. This actual practice says in actions instead of words that we do not take the precious blood of Jesus for granted.  We do not want to have sin in our lives that we can prevent.  God always looks at the desires of our hearts and gives us grace because of Jesus.  When we come with obedient hearts He hears us and forgives us.

It is just as important to take unleavened bread into your body during this time as it is to leave out the leaven.  Why?  Because the bread clearly represents Jesus, Our Messiah!

The bread is without leaven, or without sin and we know Jesus led a sinless life.  Pick up a kosher sheet of unleavened bread and examine it.  It is striped, pierced and bruised.   The Messiah was wounded and bruised and it is by His stripes that we are able to be healed.  He was beaten for us.  He endured pain for our sins.  The  unleavened bread is a picture of this.  We bring this out in the Passover service as we speak of the bread that we take and say a blessing over it. There is a point in the Seder meal when we hide the beautiful bag that is made of three layers of cloth.  Inside is a piece of matzah.  Our children are told to go and find it.  Whoever finds the bag with the matzah inside receives a special prize.  This is to encourage the little ones to keep looking for Jesus until they find Him.  

The feast during unleavened bread speaks often of the sanctification process that each follower of Christ must go through.  The Messiah was set apart.  He was unleavened (sinless.)   He reminds us in his words to us that a little leaven leavens the whole lump (Gal. 5:9.)  This is another way of saying to us and reminding us that a small sin in our lives can spread and grow, causing us to puff up with pride and arrogance.  In the end it will defeat us.  It is totally unhealthy and bad for us.  It starts off small and gets larger and larger until it is totally out of control.  If you don't believe this put a large amount of leavening into a lump of dough and let it sit in your refrigerator for awhile.  You will be amazed at how it takes over the whole shelf when it rises!  

We have a funny family story that we always remember at our house on Unleavened Bread.  Our daughter Erin bought boxes full of yeast rolls to use at her sister's bridal tea.  The refrigerator went bad while she was at work, and the dough rose more and more throughout the day.  It looked like the bread monster had taken over the house when she got home.  Bread dough was coming out the doors and the refrigerator was totally beyond repair!  It was actually a hilarious thing to gaze upon if you were not expecting to see it!  A perfect picture of how the leaven of sin can get out of control too.  It can take over your whole life and ruin it if you do not purge it from your life. 

In contrast to all of this pride and arrogance of the leaven, we see the sinless body of Christ.  He is the bread of life!  He is the matzah!  He chose to be broken and offered up for you and I.   When we break the matzah we think of His broken body.  We realize He is the true Bread of Heaven, like the matzah that reigned down to feed the people in the wilderness.  If we take Him into our selves, we will always be nourished, always be satisfied, always be filled!  He is the health that we are seeking.  We must be taking in more of the Bread of Heaven!   

So we do not mind carrying out this ritual every year, because it reminds us to always be putting off our sin nature and replacing it with the Body of Christ.  The children who always imitate the adults learn so much from this time.  Adults are also stretched in their learning.  During unleavened bread we become very aware of the sins that affect the body.  By not putting leaven into our bodies we realize how much we  sometimes crave things that are not good for us, and how we must overcome the craving for sin by replacing the sin with the goodness of God. 

This fast of leaving out the leaven and putting in the matzoh teaches us not to be prideful, and helps us to realize that humility is the best way to live and be,  both before God and with our fellowman.   A lot of us have developed the habit of inviting each other over to share the meals of unleavened bread together at the tables of our homes and to share daily readings that speak of the practice of unleavened bread.  It is not required, it is simply something that we do willingly as an act of fellowship and our love for one another.   

This observance makes us more aware of how God’s children should be living all the time.  

It is a good way for us to encourage one another to stay on track with God's will in our daily lives.  

It is a great yearly reminder that always helps us to persevere and reminds us that we should continue to try to keep overcoming the world.

So, let us continue to break unleavened bread together forever and celebrate the Body of Christ!

COME AS A CHILD - LESSON 116 - SOMETIMES YOU JUST NEED A BROTHER TO HELP

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

So we left Moses standing there in front of the burning bush where he was clearly hearing the voice of God saying; GO!  Tell Pharaoh to let my people go!

Thinking about all the things that God had already said to Moses, I am reminded of the lyrics of that beautiful old hymn called “Here I Am Lord” especially when I read these lyrics:

I, the Lord of sea and sky,
I have heard My people cry.
All who dwell in dark and sin,
My hand will save.
I who made the stars of night,
I will make their darkness bright.
Who will bear My light to them?
Whom shall I send?

Well, God was definitely set on sending Moses.  Moses, on the other hand, being so very human, had all these questions; “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The LORD did not appear to you?’

So God tries to help him out.  God says to Moses “What is that in your hand?”  Moses replies that he is holding a staff. The LORD said, “Throw it on the ground.”

So Moses throws his staff on the ground and right before his eyes it becomes a snake.  Yikes!  He ran from it!  But God called down to him; “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.”  So, as frightened as he was, that is what Moses did.  Instantly the snake turned back into a staff.

As Moses stood in amazement, God explained what was going on.  “This is so that they may believe that the LORD, the God of their fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has appeared to you.”

God wasn’t through yet.  He told Moses to put his hand inside his cloak.  When Moses did this and then took his hand out again it was covered with leprosy, white as snow.  That must have felt pretty horrible! God then told Moses to put his hand back inside his cloak.  When Moses did this and pulled his hand out again,  his hand was restored! 

Well, Moses must have been amazed and God kept giving him even more instructions:  “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second.  If they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground.  The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”

All of this was astounding and amazing and it  should have convinced Moses that everything was okay; but Moses seemed to have a little confidence problem.  He brought up the fact that he had never been an eloquent speaker.  He mentioned that his speech was slow and his tongue did not always cooperate. 

God didn’t blink.  As a matter of fact, he got more aggressive with his plans for Moses. 

Moses obviously needed a few reminders!

I can imagine God’s voice becoming a whole lot louder with each statement as He addressed Moses with the obvious: 
“Who gave human beings their mouths?”
“Who makes them deaf or mute?”
“Who gives them sight or makes them blind?”
“Is it not I, the LORD?”

“Now go, I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Well, you would think Moses’ confidence would have greatly improved by now.  Nope!  He gets even more shy and timid and says the unthinkable back to God:  “Please send someone else.”

Oh my, all the angels in heaven must have been terrified in that moment!  God had already given angry answers.  How could Moses say such a thing?  But he did say it; and the LORD’s anger burned against him! 

Folks, you can mark this down.  God is going to do what God is going to do!  If he doesn’t use you or me or Moses, He will command the rocks to do His will.  The will of God is destined to come about.  No exceptions, one way or the other!  Why are we so stubborn to that fact?  Taking this into consideration, I would say God showed a lot of patience with Moses.

“What about your brother, Aaron the Levite?  I know he can speak well.  He is already on his way to meet you and he will be glad to see you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him.  But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”

One cannot help but remember how back in Egypt Moses had played second to his brother Ramses.  He had not wanted the responsibility of being in charge.  Now those same old tendencies were creeping back up, things he thought he had changed when he moved on to Midian.  God saw the problem and he brought Aaron to help, but he clearly told Moses to pick up the staff and keep it.  

It was Moses that God was going to use, however it took to get him there. 

They were no longer subject to Egypt, and God was calling the shots in this game.  God was about to teach Moses something he should have learned years ago; how to stand up to a Pharaoh. 

We all have Pharaohs; those people that are oppressing us against our will and holding us in bondage.  It takes God entering our lives, bringing His power to us, to give us the strength to stand up and face these people who have no rights over us.  

It never hurts when your brother knows your needs, agrees with you and goes along for moral support.  In the end you both will realize that it was the power of God that saved the day, and nothing that any man could do.  

If God is for you; who can stand against you?  Moses was about to discover the truth of this statement.  He picked up the staff and headed down the road.

SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - PASSOVER

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

THE PASSOVER

I am a Christian, believing in Jesus Christ as Messiah.  I am NOT trying to act Jewish, I am simply trying to be a more accurate Christian. God used the Jewish people to teach the Christians how to live.   Because of this, I keep the Holy Days in my home according to the Jewish calendar, the same calendar that Jesus kept, on the same days that the disciples continued to keep, even after the Resurrection and Jesus's Ascension into heaven.    I have learned, like they did; that God gave these dates in the time order of appointed sacred times, and that they have never been changed by God, even after the fulfillment of the Resurrection on the second Holy Day of the Seven Days of  Unleavened Bread, during Passover  Week which we call Early First Fruits.  

If the order of these Holy Days were changed by God, like many people think, and God's calendar ended at the cross, so much of God's story that He tells through the Holy Days would remain unfulfilled!  Yet; sadly; many stop their religious observances after the celebration of Passover and The Resurrection.  By only keeping and observing a portion of the well laid out plan of God, the continuation of God's plan would be skewed.  There are three more holy sacred times that HAVE NOT YET been fulfilled that come AFTER the Passover.  Teaching people to forget these Holy Days and God's calendar only helps Satan to keep God's people skewed.  It keeps them from seeing all of God's complete prophecies.    This year Passover (which includes The Days of Unleavened Bread and Early First Fruits) will be observed April 22 - 30th.  It is a very sacred and holy time that is rich with ancient history and modern transitions.    I feel sorry for anyone who is so caught up in the trappings of the world's teaching that they miss or dismiss the true time of Passover.  

Many people think Passover started with the Exodus from Egypt, but the whole concept actually began way back in the garden with Adam and Eve.  God first showed the concept of Passover to Adam and Eve when He killed an animal and used the skin of the animal to cover their nakedness.  It is thought by the sages that God roasted the meat of the animal killed to cover Adam and Eve’s sin, and they ate a meal together just outside of Paradise.  This was the beginning of God repairing the breach caused by their sin inside the garden.

In this sense, observing Passover is the beginning of repairing the breach between God and mankind.  Note that it was initiated by God, planned and laid out as a way for us to come back to Him.  God has never wanted mankind to be separated from Him.  He has used Passover to teach us this.

We know that Adam and Eve taught a concept of Passover to their children who taught it to their children all the way up through history right to the  present generation where we are living now. 
    

Even when the great flood came, Noah kept count of God’s sacred days and he and his family celebrated them together on the ark.  Afterwards Noah’s son Shem became the family high priest for the first new family after the flood.  He taught about God’s sacred holy days in the first school that he founded to teach people about God's way of life. 

Many generations later, in the days of Moses God’s people were taken into slavery and held captive by an Egyptian Pharaoh.  God told Moses to lead the people to freedom.  When Pharaoh refused to let the people go God sent plagues across the land of Egypt.  The last and worst plague was the death of every first born son.  Before this night, which was Passover, God instructed Moses to tell the people to put the blood of a lamb over the door posts of their homes.  On this night, if the Angel of Death saw the blood of the lamb over the door post of the home, he would pass over and the first born of that house would be saved.  This is how God helped His people remember this sacred time even when they had been held for years in captivity and had not been allowed to worship Him or keep His sacred times.  God was reminding them that HE set the dates of our time.  He is the eternal timekeeper.  He stands outside of time; but He has planned for every second of our life as He watches over it.  Some of our seconds, minutes and hours are more blessed and sacred and should always be set aside.  

Many years after the wilderness experience of the Israelites, during the days of Solomon’s temple, the people brought their lambs to the temple to be slaughtered by the priest.  Each sacrificial lamb wore a sign around its neck with the family name painted on it.  The blood of the lamb was poured out at the altar and the meat was taken home and roasted on a pomegranate pole until it was done and the whole family would gather in the home and have a sacred meal to remember how God had atoned for their sins by the blood of their lamb.  They would also remember how God had delivered their ancestors from the bondage of slavery and led them through the wilderness to the promised land.  All of the lamb was eaten in this meal.  If any was left over it was burned in the fire.  The stories of these things were told each year to the next generation so they would always remember the sacred stories of God.  Are you passing them on to your next generation?  It is so easy for children to see these stories when you observe the Passover Seder inside your home.  

 Then came the days that Herad was king.  Jesus Christ was born to a young virgin named Mary.  Jesus grew up keeping God’s sacred, appointed times.  He was the first man to ever live without sin.  He was the Son of God who came from God to earth in the form of man.  He endured every temptation known to mankind without sinning.  He was a great teacher and He taught about The Kingdom of God.  He had many followers and they were called disciples.  

Jesus and His disciples understood sacred, appointed times and they observed The Passover for seven days.  On the night before Jesus was crucified the disciples ate the Passover meal with Jesus.  On that night Jesus asked them to always remember him with this meal.  Shortly after that He was crucified.  He hung on a cruel cross, suffered and bled and died for my sins and your sins and the sins of those disciples that ate at the table with Him.  He was the Holy Lamb of God.    

On this very same day called Passover Jesus Christ became the lamb for the door post of our hearts.  He atoned for our sins by giving his life in exchange for the debt of our sin.  He redeemed us from the bondage of the slavery to sin.  Christians must remember this at Passover .  He commanded us to always remember this.  At the time the disciples participated in the Passover with Christ before His crucifixion they were on their way to being REAL Christians, the very blessed People of a Resurrected Messiah.  They had done all that was humanly possible and Jesus was about to do the rest.  There were appointed, sacred times for fulfilling all of this.  God had set them in motion from the foundation of the world.  Jesus understood this.  He waited on God's timing and then accepted His mission to save the world just as they had mapped it out from the very beginning.    

Today we have come to  know that Jesus Christ was the Holy Lamb of God who took away the sins of the world.  He was and is our Passover.   He fulfilled every thing  that had been learned in the keeping of Passover for all the years before and after His death, burial and resurrection.  He asked us to always remember.

The people who love God today still keep the Passover and they have not forgotten Jesus’s words when he said “Remember Me.”  They know that Jesus became our Passover lamb and that His blood was perfect blood which atoned for all the sins of mankind forever.  God’s people still keep God’s sacred, appointed time called Passover.  We remember each Sabbath and we remember each Passover.   In all the years that have passed, God's people have never forgotten.

So now we all know of these things which came about over time through the different generations of people serving God that further fulfilled the meaning of Passover.   These little stories were added to the whole story and passed on from each generation of people as pieces of Passover developed and unfolded and happened in their own time.  

From the beginning of time God wrote, knew and understood the whole story, but we have had to live through the story in order to understand it all.  We will always remember to tell the story to our children, to pass it on to the next generation.  They must understand all these things that God used to teach us that Jesus Christ would become The Lamb of God offered up for the sins of the whole world.  Each year we remember and we tell our children of the greatest love story that ever happened, all the while hoping that they too will learn and grow and love and know the goodness of The Lord and pass the beautiful story on to their children one day. 

At Passover we glorify the Lamb who is worthy to open the scroll; the Lamb of God who was slain from the foundation of the world, who hung on a cross to pay for the sins of all mankind.  He is worthy of all glory and honor and praise.   We must always remember how much God loved us to send Him to us.  We must always remember how much He loved us to die in our place.  

Passover is all about remembering the most important things of God which we should never forget.     

The Passover season lasts for eight days.  The Seder meal is eaten inside the homes of God’s people on the first day just after sunset.  The meal is served on white linen tablecloths by candlelight and special blessings and prayers are recited to help us remember and to allow us as a family to offer up our thanks to a God with a heart bigger than the sky.  

SEASONS - GOD'S SACRED HOLY DAYS - PART FOUR - THE DAY OF EARLY FIRST FRUITS

(Written by Sheila Gail Landgraf)

EARLY FIRST FRUITS

We come, during the season of Passover and Unleavened Bread to the Feast of Early First Fruits, another sacred time set apart by God to be thankful for the early harvest of the land; and a time that is very symbolic of the Resurrection of Christ.   It is as if the Resurrection was being proclaimed even centuries and centuries before it occurred by faithful people keeping this day even before Messiah had come!  Now that is faith!  They were simply being obedient to God, but did not fully understand why.  

 After the Resurrection Jesus told us to wait and count the days until Pentecost when The Holy Spirit would come.  The scriptures tell us how to begin counting the omer during the Days of Unleavened Bread on this day of Early First Fruits that begins at sunset after Passover on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread.   Remember that Hebraic days start at sunset and last for 24 hours according to the phases of the moon.  

It was on THE THIRD DAY that Jesus was Resurrected.  At the end of this second day of Unleavened Bread,  the day we know as the day of Early First Fruits became the day He presented the atoning blood that redeemed our souls to God.   At the Evening of The Second Day Of Unleavened Bread after sunset the Third Day of Unleavened Bread begins.  This is our time for celebrating The Resurrection of Christ!  It was made possible by the Early First Fruit offering of Christ, given between the time that He died and the time that He returned to earth in the Resurrection.  

The omer was the unit for measuring the offering of the early barley crops that were harvested  of which the first portion was taken to the priest from the best of the early crops.  It happened like clockwork each year on this day.  The largest early harvest was the barley harvest.  Barley was simply the first crop to ripen every year.  The barley was ready before all the other crops.
 

On that day (the day of the Early First Fruits)  the priest waived the first offerings of the barley crop (which measured an omer when processed) before God in Thanksgiving for the early harvest of the year.  

This day of the offering of the early first fruits came always on the morrow after the seventh day Sabbath during the week of Passover.  This year Passover falls on the Sabbath, so the first Day of Unleavened Bread falls on the day after the Sabbath, that is always on a Sunday.  The counting of the omer will always begin on a Sunday (the morrow after the 7th Day Sabbath of Passover Week).    The day of Early First Fruits during Unleavened Bread is the first day you begin counting and you count up to 50 to get to Pentecost.  The Early First Fruits offering would have happened just BEFORE the Resurrection, while Christ was still in Heaven with God as He gave the offering of his atoning blood for us.  So the offering in heaven might have occurred on the Second Day of The Seven Days of Unleavened Bread as Jesus who had died stood before the throne of God and offered up His Holy Body and Blood for our sins.  This is why we waive the sheaf offering before God on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread, the Day of Early First Fruits, because that waive sheaf offering is symbolic of The Risen Lord.    

We see from this that the time between Passover and the Seder meal and somewhere before the second day of Unleavened Bread, on the Day of Early First Fruits represents the true day of our redemption.  We also know that an offering is not complete until God has accepted it.  It was on THE THIRD DAY just before sunset between the second day of Unleavened Bread and the Third Day of Unleavened Bread that God accepted the offering and resurrected Jesus from the grave.  

So we observe Early First Fruits on The Second Day of Unleavened Bread and observe The Resurrection of Christ after sunset of The Second Day of Unleavened Bread (moving into the beginning of the third day.)   Now in its fulfillment by Christ this day has come to represent the offering of Christ's atoning blood for our sins, and the acceptance of God at which point Christ was raised from the dead.  Don't forget to include Passover in your counting of the days.  Christ was put in the grave late on Passover.  He was in the grave on The First Day and The Second Day and he rose on THE THIRD DAY of Unleavened Bread.  Well that surely seems right and appropriate, after looking at the unleavened bread we ate at Passover and observing how many ways it represents Christ to us, then seeing the wave sheaf waived before God on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread!  At the end of the 2nd day and going into the first part of the third day we rejoice in The Resurrection miracle of God!

We start counting the Omer on Early First Fruits, because that is when Christ offered up Himself for us before God in Heaven.  This was the way of celebrating this day in the ancient church.  They knew on The Second Day of Unleavened Bread (the day of Early First Fruits) to give their offering to the priest and to start counting the Omer on that day.   It was one of the first ways of keeping time, and the days of the omer counting became one of the first calendars ever used by men.   It feels very appropriate that we would be counting time AFTER our redemption had taken place in heaven.  Until that time occurred, our lives did not count for anything.  Now in the counting of the Omer, we are anticipating new and exciting things to come because we have had our sins forgiven and we have been made new.  We have placed ourselves under the will of God and we open our hearts to learn all that He has to teach us about The Kingdom of God.  We come out of the ways of the world and we come into the ways of God.  Following the example of Our Messiah, we offer our lives as living sacrifices.  We are waiting and counting the days until Pentecost because we know that it is The Holy Spirit that brings us the power of Resurrection and New Life in Christ.  We are like a crop of wheat growing in the sun, waiting for the harvest.  We know at that time if we keep growing in God that we can be useful to our heavenly Father, and our own purposes will be fulfilled under God's will and they will be significant and make a difference.  In the harvest of God's souls, each person will make a difference in their own unique way.  

The ancient people had no idea WHY they were counting, or WHY they always started on the day of Early First Fruits, but that was what God had commanded and that was what they did for years and years and years.  When Messiah came, most of the people finally understood.  Especially when they looked around them on the day of Early First Fruits and saw the other people who had also risen from their graves right after Christ.  These were the ones who had believed in faith that God would send the Messiah.  Jesus was THE Early First Fruit offering, the first and the best of all souls that had ever lived, and these others were the first souls to rise from the grave as part of the early harvest of God's souls.  Can you just imagine who would have been there?  It is mind boggling to think of it. 

 

When Early First Fruits was only known as a day to go up to the Temple to bring your early harvest offering, the priests would wave the sheaves of barley before God in Thanksgiving at The Temple.  There is no physical Temple today, but we have our bodies with The Holy Spirit of God residing inside as a temporary temple (or tabernacle) until we meet God after death.  That is why Jesus wanted us to count the omer and wait the 50 days until God sent The Holy Spirit.  

We can remember to keep this commandment of giving an offering of the early first fruits of our labor by setting aside an extra offering specifically to be used for looking after the widows, orphans, strangers and Levites (those in the ministry of God) among us. This is what the ancient people realized when they left the corners of their fields for others in need to gather for food.  That was how Ruth came to know Boaz; her kinsman redeemer.  By giving of our early first fruits we make a way for others to know our kinsman redeemer also.  By showing love and care for those in need, we show others the love of Christ.  First Fruits is a time to give of the first of your blessings to those in need of support instead of buying more than you actually need for yourself.

Remember the story of Cain and Abel when you decide on your offering.  Pick something that is of your first and your best to offer up on this day.   Do you have a special talent that you will dedicate to God in the next year?  That would be a good first fruits offering!  This offering can consist of money or time or whatever you feel God is leading you to do.  Pray for guidance.  It is not a corporate decision, it is an individual decision.  Why not pay a bill for a friend who needs help, or buy some groceries for some young struggling couple, or help an older person take care of some medical needs, or give something to your Pastor to help him better take care of his family?  

Pray – and God will show you where to put your offering of the first fruits of your labor.  This is an offering that is above your usual tithe.  Have you not been tithing to God?  I do not mean to say are you giving one-tenth of your income to a local congregation, though that would certainly be tithing.  I mean are you taking one tenth of your income each time you receive profit and giving it away in the name of God to whatever worthy cause God puts on your heart?  If you are not following this practice, perhaps your first fruits offering this year will be to promise God to do this in the coming year.  Each of us grow and learn at a different pace, trust God to show you from where you are right now.  This Early First Fruits offering should come directly from you and the Sanctuary of your own home.  It is not a group effort of a church congregation, though there is certainly nothing wrong with that.  The offering of The Early First Fruits is an offering between you and God.  Consider it carefully so that God finds it acceptable.  Remember Cain and Abel.

All these years the people kept this feast day in a spirit of thanksgiving, thinking it was only for giving thanks for their first barley crops, their first physical harvest of the year; and a way of marking time to start counting up to the latter harvest of their wheat crops.   Now Jesus has shown us how it was prophetic of a much greater spiritual harvest.    This first harvest is symbolic of Jesus, who has risen from the dead and  ascended into heaven as the First Fruits of everlasting life.  Those who rose from the grave after Him were the first of God’s harvest of souls. 

Unless you are keeping the Days of Unleavened Bread and observing Day of First Fruits and counting the omer after First Fruits until Pentecost, you might miss all of this, lose a lot of the wonderful details, or just forget to make time to remember it all.  You might even get the wrong interpretations of these true days mixed up in your mind from the teachings of the world around you.  These days were given by God for a reason and they are holy and scriptural.  Observance of them brings you more understanding every year and that will give you more joy in your heart each year!

So remember and ponder the facts that we know Christ was crucified on Passover.  He was in the grave 3 days and 3 nights.  He rose from the grave alive just after sunset on that third day,   This would make the celebration of the Resurrection occur always after sunset ending the 2^nd day of Unleavened Bread going into the 3^rd Day (don't forget to count Pasover in your counting.) Because the Hebrews counted from sunset to sunset it would have been possible for Christ to have the Passover meal the evening before his crucifixion day.  He was in the grave for 3 days and 3 nights, Passover Day was the first day (he celebrated the Passover Seder the night BEFORE), The 1st Day of Unleavened Bread is the 2nd day, and the second day of Unleavened Bread is the 3rd Day.  Now; He is Risen!  It happened on Early First Fruits!  Know in your heart that this is a time of celebrating much more than a barley harvest!  It is a time to celebrate The Resurrection of Christ!  

All of this is true to the sign of Jonah that Christ said He would fulfill.  As Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of a whale, Christ spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the earth.   The world celebrates Good Friday to Easter Sunday.  This isn't 3 days and 3 nights.  Keeping Unleavened Bread keeps the time accurate according to the scriptures.  He died, He presented His blood before God as our atonement, and He went to release the captives who were bound in the underworld.  Then He rose from the grave! Those who believed in Him even before He died on the cross, rose from their graves right after Him!  On the third day He showed himself alive.   He is risen!  Let there be a thousand Hallelujahs!  He is risen indeed!

Because certain churches have said that Easter Sunday would be the day of the annual celebration of The Resurrection of Christ most people today observe that day.  It is printed in black and white each year on the calendar of the world; but it simply is not correct, even though it is very conveniently placed at a time when most people will be off from work and years and years of family traditions have been built around these erroneous facts.  

Some people even know the truth, but refuse to change their habits for the truth.  I heard a good comparison of this one day.  When you are a child and you believe in The Tooth Fairy and The Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, then you begin to get older and more mature and you find out the truth.  For awhile you will just pretend you still believe, because you want these things to be really true, but you know they are not.  Humans tend to hold on to what is familiar to them, even if it is a lie.  Satan has used this against us for thousands of years now.   Eventually, you grow up and become an adult.  You learn to put the old familiar thoughts aside and do the things you know are true.  As you mature, eventually you let go of the lie and embrace the truth.

It is hard to go against traditions that have gone on for years and years with families that have held them sacred.  Do you want to keep holding on to what is not true?   One day as a child of God you will find freedom in accepting the truth and God will give you true joy when you believe what He told you instead of what the world has twisted because of the enemy of God wanting us to believe in lies.  

Christ rose from the grave as an Early First Fruit offering for us on the day of Early First Fruits.  So between sunset on the 2^nd day of unleavened bread and sunset on the 3^rd day we celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus!  

This day was known as a shadow and a type for the people through all the ritual of early first fruits harvests, long before Jesus ever walked the earth.

Why would we change it?  God ordained it!   Can an earthly ruler change the dates set by a heavenly ruler? 

Keeping the most important commandment in mind, that last and greatest commandment Jesus spoke to us, to LOVE our brothers, I do practice the art of grace and let my friends celebrating Easter Sunday off easy by realizing they truly are celebrating the resurrection of Christ to the best of their knowledge and understanding, and it is a good thing to celebrate the resurrection EVERY DAY of the year. 

With God's Holy Spirit living and alive in us, we can have compassion for one another and share what we do agree on in love.   God looks at the intentions of our hearts.  We will not be judged for what we do not yet understand.   I do not condemn others, but I am careful to try to make the sacred days observed in my own life accurate and scriptural.   

It is a great balancing act  meant to bring confusion from the devil, but God has taught us a way to change it for good.  It is also a time to show love, respect and compassion to others.  Isn't that what Jesus was proclaiming when he laid down his life?  It is a time of worship, to look to God and not to worry about those around us.  We must simply judge ourselves, clean our own houses and move on through the world with love and compassion and kindness, yet speak the truth in love so that others, should they have ears to hear, may share our joy.    

God holds each of us accountable to the knowledge that He has given us.  Each of us must answer individually just as each of us must bring our early first fruits individually.  When we reach that day when the sheep are separated from the goats, what I have done will not count for you, and what you have done will not count for me.  We all must obey whatever God has shown us in this life.  He will show all of us exactly what He needs for us to know exactly when He needs for us to know it.

I am simply living out who I am; a person who studies deep and follows the amazing patterns that God has given us.  God has over history and time shown us many, many patterns, and I love using the patterns that God spelled out for us to follow.  If your earthly father proclaimed a family holiday on a Tuesday; would you tell him it was inconvenient for you to celebrate it on that day and proclaim that you can only celebrate it on a Wednesday?  I think not.  If you loved your Father very much and wanted to always honor Him, you would most likely be obedient and honor your father on the day that he chose to celebrate the family event.  That is all I am trying to do in observing the more exact scriptural days.  

I had no idea what blessings this would bring into my life the first few years I stepped out in blind faith and followed God's original instructions straight from His instruction book. I felt like a little toddler learning to walk.  I was very self conscious about it for many years.  I was simply being obedient to the truth of the scriptures.  Now my life is full of joy because of that decision.  I would never go back!  

So, you might ask; if I do not judge people, why do I keep writing about it?  Because God has called me to do so, and I want everyone to experience this joy that I have found.  The writing is part of my offering of early first fruits.  I wish to use the talents God gave to me for His glory.  I write about these things to proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ, just as others write about other scriptural things to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ in other ways.  I've found The Holy Days of God are actually the most perfect tool I've ever found to proclaim The Gospel and the truth of Jesus Christ being the Messiah.  

How wonderful to know that My Savior, Jesus Christ fulfilled the meaning of this sacred time when he brought His very own sacred blood before God as an early first fruits offering for our salvation.  For so many long years the priest would take the sheaves of the first fruits and waive them before God on the day of  Early First Fruits, on the second day of Unleavened Bread.  Now we know that it corresponds directly with the very time that Christ stood before God in Heaven and presented evidence of our salvation.  The sheaves were waived BEFORE the Resurrection happened, in order that we might know and believe when it did.  

We start counting the Omer on the second Day of Unleavened Bread because this was the time when we received the promise of The Holy Spirit coming in 50 days.     We received this promise because Christ died for us and presented the atonement before God in Heaven on this day.  It was the early first fruit offering to God from our Messiah, an offering of His first and His best; He gave all He had, His very life.  He set the example for us on how to give offerings to God.  Our offerings can never have the value of Christ's offering, but we are still asked to come in faith before God offering our first and our best from the fruit of our labor.  Our labor is our work.  Jesus Christ had one job to do while He was on earth.  His work was to be The Messiah of God.  This work is what He offered to The Father.  

By the blood of Christ we are also able to obtain a sure resurrection.  This is what happens at the Latter Harvest, the time when we too like Jesus will rise from the grave and go to be with God forever and ever.  This is made possible by The Holy Spirit living in us, and we celebrate it (the latter harvest) at Pentecost, which comes like clockwork 50 days after Early First Fruits each year.  That is why we are counting the days by counting the Omer!  We are anticipating Pentecost!  We are anticipating what gives us the same resurrection power of Christ inside our own bodies.  It is The Holy Spirit that brings us to the time of our own resurrection.  

All those many years that the Israelites waved the sheaves before God and did not realize that it was a representation of Christ rising from the grave are so very significant to us now.  They tell us that it is good to wait on God, that He will never forget us and that He will eventually use the messages found in His Holy Days to proclaim and fulfill all of His truth for us.  

 Are you anticipating whatever God will do next?  Are you watching and waiting and observing the days that He gave us in order to help us to understand all the truth of the Gospel?  It is an awesome experience, and anyone who has spent their years observing these Spring Holy Days of God will speak to you of their great blessings!  And when we reach Pentecost???

Yes, there is even more to the story!  All the more reason to be counting our days!