2 Corinthians 7:1 Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
As we celebrated Yom Teruah (Feast of Trumpets) and are in the midst of “Yamin Noraim” or the days of awe, the days between the Feast of Trumpets and Yom Kippur, it is the season of repentance.
This is the season that the shofar (rams horn) is blown to heed the call of warning to repent from our sins and be clean. The shofar’s unique sounding blast is a wake-up call to all who will hear.
Those of you who know what a shofar looks like, know it’s quite intriguing. As a matter of fact, I have a shofar displayed on a shelf in my living room as a centerpiece (and a reminder) and most who enter often comment on its beauty. My wife makes sure our shofar is dusted and shined it to keep it looking its best.
However, I don’t know how many of you have ever smelled the odor of a ram’s horn before it’s properly cleaned, but I can tell you from personal experience that it is by far one of the most putrid, revolting and rancid smelling things I’ve smelled in my lifetime. And it is a common dilemma among shofar owners as to how best to rid it of that awful smell. Some say washing it out with vinegar does the trick, others say soaking your shofar in alcohol guarantees a clean smell, and still others firmly stand by some strange hodgepodge of ingredients they’ve concocted.
Interestingly enough, the Hebrew root of the word shofar is the word “shifra”, which means to beautify, which is directly related to the Hebrew word “shapair” which means to improve!
Now, I think most of us remember to wash our outward bodies in order to look and smell nice as we go out into the world around us. But how many of us are walking around just gorgeous on the outside but the stench of sin reeking within us?!! As the shofar blasts this season, let us heed the call to improve and beautify ourselves, not only outwardly but from our ignorance of and rebellion against God’s perfect will for our lives.
There is much work to be done for the Kingdom and we can’t accomplish any of it with our outward beauty! Let’s ask the Lord to do some revealing and cleansing in our hearts and lives as we continue in the season of repentance.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]For years, when I visited my father-in-law’s home in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, we would break bread and bless the bread with the traditional blessing – “Baruch Ata Adonai Eleheynu Melech HaOlam Ha-Motzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” – which translated means,”Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given us bread from the earth”. After the blessing, my father-in-law would take salt and sprinkle the challah bread as he broke and passed it to everyone at the table.
One day a passerby saw a homeless man on the roadside. He stopped for a moment to hand him some loose change and casually said “God bless you, my friend”.
“I thank God,” said the homeless man, “I am never unhappy.”
Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?
One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.
We tend to focus on the part of that scripture where God does the blessing — but why did He bless Him? The answer lies in the passage! The Lord told Abraham: “I will bless you — and you shall be a blessing.” Abraham was blessed so that he could be a blessing!
In the Olivet discourse recorded in Matthew 24, Yeshua prophesied that “… nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.” The word “nation” in Greek is the word “ethnos”, from which we get the English word “ethnic”. All of this polarization and ethnic warfare which the media feed upon and incite is the work of the enemy as he stirs up the sinful nature of men.
Several hundred years before Jesus was born, a plague broke out in Athens, Greece. In an effort to stop the plague and appease the ‘gods’, the Athenians sought counsel from a wise man named Epimenides from the island of Crete.