John 10:22-23 At that time the Feast of Dedication (Chanukah) took place at Jerusalem. It was winter, and Jesus was walking in the temple, in the colonnade of Solomon.
John 10:28-31 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.
As Chanukah, the feast of dedication, begins this evening, I’m often surprised how many people don’t realize that Yeshua (Jesus) celebrated Chanukah. In the gospel of John, it was during this winter feast that He was questioned as to whether He was the Messiah or not, and His amazing responses provoked His questioners to threaten to stone Him. But one of His statements contains a promise which ought to motivate us to the deepest dedication, and most profound gratitude:
“I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.”
What an amazing assurance we have there!
During this season of re-dedication, let’s remind ourselves of these precious words of Yeshua and rejoice in the fact that we’ve been given eternal life and that no one can take away from us! For the Lord said it himself on Chanukah — and that’s certainly a promise to celebrate!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]I could tell you about countless difficult and drawn out circumstances over which we have tried to stand firmly in faith until they finally came to pass. Sometimes we made it and sometimes we were weak and began to doubt. But God mercifully came through for us on most of these things, despite our lack of strength to stay faith-ful.
New Testament genealogies of Yeshua Ha Mashiach (Jesus the Christ) all identify Him as the son of king David. It was universally understood from the Tenach (OT) that the messiah would be descended from David and that he would restore the Davidic monarchy to its ultimate and most universal expression, even that this king would reign and sit on the throne forever.
This weekend, the Jewish people will celebrate the festival of Purim. This holiday commemorates Israel’s amazing reversal in Persia during the reign of King Xerxes (Ahasuerus) when Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai gained victory for the Jews and protected them from annihilation at the hands of the evil Haman.
Over two decades ago, when I moved to Israel, I had the opportunity to spend considerable time with a pastor and his wife. This pastor imparted significant wisdom to me during that period, counseling me to “be like the children of Issachar,” he directed me to this specific passage in 1 Chronicles 12.
Over the past few days, I’ve been discussing the will of God and how to walk out His will daily in our lives. The Lord’s general will involves the development of our character and the ways in which we relate to Him and to our fellow man. Much of this is the same for every believer. But each of us is unique, and each has a potential life vision unlike any other. God has an individual will for every soul that belongs to Him, an individually shaped destiny which varies according to our gifting and calling and purpose in His Body.
As God worked on creation for six days and rested on the seventh day, so our seven day week is established on that pattern. If, as the scripture declares, with the Lord one day is as 1,000 years and 1,000 years as a day, then the seven-day cycle also finds expression in a great historical “week”. As we approach the 1,000-year reign of the Messiah, this “millennium” as it is called, (described in some detail in Revelation chapter 20), is clearly understood as a time of global rest, peace, and righteousness throughout the Earth.
The word for “restitution” in this passage is the Greek word – “apokatastasis”. This is the one and only place it is found in the New Testament. The word literally means to “restore again” or “to repair”. The plan of God in sending His Son Yeshua (Jesus) was to restore that which had been broken and ruined. The Lord’s saving work is a global repair job. Each one of us has come to Him already ruined by sin. But God’s will and His promise is to restore and renew us through His Son.