Joel 2:1 Blow ye the trumpet (shofar in Hebrew) in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is near at hand;
Amazingly another year has passed and tomorrow night begins the feast of Yom Turah -- or Rosh Ha Shannah -- the Feast of Trumpets.
At the end of summer, the Hebrews are commanded to blow the shofar -- the ram’s horn, all day long. The sound of the shofar was a sound of alarm -- it told the people to get ready. It marked in the calendar that the summer harvest was over and the day of atonement was near and it was time to stand before God.
The feast of Trumpets is amazingly prophetic. Right now, we are in the midst of the great harvest and the next major event is the sound of the trumpet -- just before the great day of the Lord. Within the feast of trumpets contains a personal message for us. It’s God’s wake up call: We don’t have forever! We only walk through this life once -- and as quickly as steam rises from hot water and quickly disappears, so it is with our lives.
Soon it will be passed and we will stand before our Maker. If we are going to do great things for Him -- now is the time! If we need to repent for anything -- now is the time. The Lord commands us to arise and shine and let our light shine throughout the world! The shofar is sounding, the summer harvest is nearing completion, and the day of the Lord is near.
Become God’s shofar, sound His warning of judgment and radiate the love He’s given us through His Son, that those around you will be able to stand pure before God!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]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.
These past few days, writing about the will of God, has reminded me of the prophet Jeremiah, and how the Lord knew him – even before he was in his mother’s womb, and he was sanctified by God as a prophet to the nations. A similar foreknowledge and ordination of God belongs to us who are under the New Covenant. God’s foreknowledge of His people is clearly stated in scripture. We were chosen in Him before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless, and created in Messiah Yeshua (Christ Jesus) unto good works which He foreordained that we walk in them.