by the stream

Jeremiah 17:7-8

But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord,
    whose confidence is in him.
⁸ They will be like a tree planted by the water
    that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
    its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
    and never fails to bear fruit.”

Pillar of Salt

I was just reading an article and mention was made of Lot and his family as they were leaving Sodom. I recalled the part of the story in which his wife looked back and was destroyed. Here, God was saving this family – this one small family of people living a righteous life amid the most detestable evil  – and another one bites the dust. 

He was choosing to save her. She had a get out of jail free card. She must have been considered somewhat righteous in order to be allowed to escape the judgment, and yet, by simply looking back over her shoulder, she reaps judgment with the others. Did this one act make her lose her chance? Apparently!

There are a couple of reasons why this might have happened. 

1. God said to not even look back, so therefore she was immediately in sin when she glanced back.
2. By glancing back, she was double-minded. She was obediently leaving the city in body, but her heart was remaining there, where her home, material possessions and possibly friends were. 

We know that sin has its consequences, particularly before Jesus’ blood covered us, but this double-mindedness is a very dangerous thing indeed. The Bible warns of it several times. Yet, we are most likely all quite guilty of this.

We hear what God wants us to do and rather than obeying immediately, we consider our options. We read a Biblical command and rather than jumping to do it, or avoid it whichever the case may be, we plot it out, consider it, but don’t obey fully. 

When I first was convicted about celebrating the feasts of the Lord, I wanted to obey immediately. However, I didn’t want to give up my other holidays, such as Christmas. I knew there was sufficient evidence in the Bible to warrant me giving up all my Christmas and Easter thingamajigs, but I was sort of sad about doing it. I didn’t know how to address it all with the kids. Fortunately, at least in this matter, I obeyed fully, although I admit I have found still more Christmas stuff that I need to get rid of in boxes from our recent move. Yet, I am certain if I thought long and hard enough about it, I would most definitely be able to list hundreds of areas I have not obeyed fully and/or immediately. 

So that would put me in her shoes, going forward in body with the Lord, and glancing back over my shoulder at my former life, and in some way missing it. Do I long for my material things, family, friends, my old ways, my old selfishness, my old controlling ways… more than I long to follow Jesus? I am sure in some ways I do. There are times, I long for chocolate more than I long for Jesus. How pathetic! While this might sound silly to some, it’s sin! I just might end up a pillar of salt too.

Feast of Weeks

To be honest, this is not a feast I have spent a lot of time thinking about. I guess it has never seemed particularly important to me, but as the day approaches this year, I am left wondering why I’ve overlooked (out of sheer laziness and lack of care) this particular feast. Certainly God commanded it. Certainly significant things have occurred on this day that we ought to want to commemorate it.

Perhaps the importance is not equal to that of Passover. It certainly is not celebrating the Lamb that was slain for my sin! Yet, important it must be.

Jews see this feast, called Shavuot, or Weeks, traditionally as the date the Torah was given. Now, that is significant. It was the date of the First Covenant, then! After the Passover occurred, the Israelites counted seven weeks, starting from the second day of Passover, making 50 days or Pentecost. So Shavuot, Feast of Weeks, and Pentecost are one and the same.

I’ve heard it said that when the Holy Spirit came as tongues of fire and touched down on the disciples they were no longer holed up in that upper room, but rather more likely celebrating this Feast of Weeks, Shavuot as they knew it, in the Temple, where Jews from around the world were gathered as part of this pilgrimage feast. They were in the Temple commemorating the day God gave the Torah, the law and wrote it on stone for Moses, when God sent the Holy Spirit down to write the law on our hearts.

Jeremiah 31:33 says, “But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

Certainly this was fulfilled on this day, and in this way, and those who knew Jesus as the Lord, received the Holy Spirit in their inward parts and had the law written on their hearts. They received power that day and spoke in various tongues so that those who were in Jerusalem heard the word of God spoken in their native languages (of the countries from where they came).

It also is the end of the grain harvest. The barley harvest which occurs at the time of the Passover is completed and the wheat harvest concludes on this day after 50 days of harvesting grain. There is some conflict around the date of the feast, whether it be the 6th of Sivan or the 15th of Sivan, and each group has its reason, but I find it interesting that the date of the first covenant made in the Bible, with Noah occurred on the 15th of Sivan, which might make this meaningful. Perhaps, as covenants go, this 15th Sivan might be an important covenantal date to God. A date of sealing and promising, gifts of God’s faithfulness to us, given in the form of the Rainbow, then the Torah, and then finally in the Holy Spirit. I don’t know these things for sure, but it’s interesting to think about.

Nonetheless, it is also interesting to note that the Law was a gift. Yes, it was a contract of sorts between God and Israel, but this contract was a gift. The Bible says the Law is sweeter than honey!

Psalm 19 verses:

7 The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
8 The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
9 The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether.
10 They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.

So, if the Law is sweet, why then do we fight it? Why then do we all too often hear in modern Christian churches that we are not under the Law, as if we need not know it or obey it? Certainly we are saved by grace. Do not misunderstand me to be saying that the Law will save us. Surely, the Law cannot save. Yet, the Law is sweeter than honey. So, maybe I am not “under” the law. Maybe I am not bound to the curse of the law, but absolutely, I desire to know and follow the law because the law is sweet.

Psalm 1:2-3 talks about the one who DELIGHTS in the law. He will be planted by streams of water.

Psalm 19:7 says the Law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul.

Psalm 119:1, says those who walk according to the Law are blessed.

Surely, then, God did not intend the Law as a burden. He intended it as a blessing.

I admittedly don’t know how to celebrate Shavuot. Little is said in the Bible about it. Nor, do I think I will be cursed for not getting it right, or for having ignored it these last 37 years of my life.

However, I do think that in celebrating this feast this year, I will be opening myself up for blessing. I see it as a golden opportunity to teach my children about the gift of the Law and how God followed that up with the Gift of the Spirit in my life. I know these are precious seeds that will be planted in my family’s life that will bloom and blossom.

So, we will bake loaves of bread to celebrate the wheat harvest. We will talk about the giving of the Law, God’s many covenants of Love with us, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit that allows us to live the Law with power. We will decorate with flowers and rainbows and celebrate God’s loving kindness. That, as they say in the hokey pokey, is what IT is ALL ABOUT!

Happy Shavuot (whether that is an appropriate Jewish greeting or not)!

Lessons from Judas

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like God is speaking to you and revealing things to you all day long? Well, I had one of those on Sunday, and it wasn't just me. My husband did too. He was out of town so he texted me and asked me to call him as soon as I could. He shared his revelations and then the rest of the day, I had one after another.

It started when I watched The Last Supper Superbook movie. I was afraid I'd barely have time to get in the word with three kids, three goats and 20 chickens needing my attention so I just asked God to show me something in the Superbook movie I put on for the kids while I was feeding my newborn. And, as promised, God showed up. He always shows up when He's invited.

He started by showing me that He knew that Judas would be a thief. I had just never given it too much thought, but Jesus, when he put Judas in the position of keeper of the purse, knew that Judas would steal it and be dishonest... and He still gave him that responsibility! Why? Well, I don't presume to know Jesus' mind on this one, but here are the reasons I was able to come up with.

1. Money doesn't matter to Him. God is our provider and while money can sometimes be used to do the job of purchasing food, shelter and giving to the poor, ultimately, to God, money is really not important. Therefore, it ought not be very important to us either. We should never live in fear of being robbed or having things or money stolen from us. God will provide. While we shouldn't be irresponsible with money and our things because God has made us stewards of these things, we also should not live in fear, and in fear push people away because we're afraid they might steal from us. God can protect us and provide for us. We just need to trust Him.
2. He wanted to give Judas a chance. Granted Jesus knew the outcome all along, but even when He knows we'll be dishonest and unfaithful, He will still give us a chance. It's always us walking away from His seeking us out, from the countless chances He gives us. He always gives us chances - and lots of them!
3. This point was harder for me to get at, but having been raised in the church, I just knew I could come up with a third point to this "sermon." Jesus could have caught him earlier on. He could have called attention to Judas' crime earlier, although certainly it would have changed the most important story in history in one way or another, but he could have removed this responsibility from him, even discreetly. Yet, he didn't. Instead, he allowed sin to run its course and God to remove him from the disciples in another way. What we can learned from this is that sometimes we should intervene and take matters into our own hands to stop sin, and other times, we ought to let God take over and handle it in the way He sees fit.

The Wedding Anniversary

Our Wedding Day, September 19, 2009

Every year my husband and I forget our anniversary. I am not a big fan of showing love on scheduled days, and prefer random acts of love and generosity throughout the year to these scheduled days. If my husband only thinks to get me a card and say I love you because it's an anniversary, we have a problem, ya know?

(Oooh, as I write this, there's another lesson I can hear. Can you also?)

So, the other day I was thinking of why we always forget our anniversary. We married on September 19, 2009, so easily I could list back-to-school craziness as one such reason. Also, my husband inevitably goes off to Man Camp that time of year, and surely, there are a thousand other less obvious reasons.

Now that we celebrate the Feasts, I am aware of three big feasts in the fall, starting in September, so I decided to consider whether these days interfere with me remembering our anniversary or if they possibly could help me remember. I know Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah comes first in September, followed by Yom Kippur and Feast of Tabernacles, I decided to start with Trumpets and looked up the date it came the year we married.

I typed in "Feast of Trumpets 2009" in my iPhone and was completely stunned when I saw our anniversary date appear. We married on Feast of Trumpets that year. Now at quick glance, who cares!? Except that when I first became interested in the feasts I learned that Feast of Trumpets is absolutely filled with wedding symbolism! In light of that, how exciting that we celebrated our wedding on Feast of Trumpets! If only, we'd had a trumpet at our ceremony! I digress.


First, I should say that I think it is very very likely that the rapture will occur on the Feast of Trumpets or Rosh Hashanah. For one thing, a "nickname" for this feast is "No Man Knows the Day or the Hour." For another thing, it is known as Coronation Day, when the King would be crowned. Also, Jesus often referred to His church as His bride and uses traditional Jewish language when he says "No man knows the day or the hour, Only the Father in Heaven." In Jewish tradition, only the Father of the groom would know when the wedding would occur because he'd be preparing the bridal chamber, and only he knew when it would be finished. "He goes and prepares a place for us..." Just as the groom will come to take his bride, Jesus will come for His bride, "like a thief in the night." Yes, there are many verses that could lead us to believe that this Feast will be the time of the rapture. It helps that the spring feasts were all fulfilled with their prophetic significance on the exact day of the feast. Jesus the Lamb was slain for us on Passover; we were sealed and had the law written on our hearts on Pentecost, and so forth.

But back to the wedding. Jewish weddings are beautiful. I attended one as a teenager, back when I didn't really even much care about any of this and certainly did not pay attention to the significance of things, but I recall the Chuppah and it was beautiful. So, when I married, I wanted one too. I asked my (then) fiance to build me one of birch trees, drape it with sheer fabric and decorate it with roses and sunflowers. It was beautiful! We stood under this Chuppah and said our vows, joined our lives together in covenant love.

Jesus came and already wrote the Ketubah, the marriage contract, on our hearts and in His own blood. We are betrothed to Him. Now, we await His return for His bride, the church. He will come as a thief in the night, when the Father tells Him all the preparations are complete. He will take us to the Chuppah in the sky, give us robes of white and we'll be His.

I am so honored that we accidentally married on the Feast of Trumpets and that even without knowing it we included some components of the Feast for our guests. Our anniversary is September 19th on the Julian calendar, but even if we forget September 19th every year as it comes around, I know we can celebrate our anniversary on Feast of Trumpets, a day of blowing trumpets in remembrance of something that is yet to come... our wedding day with Jesus.

Passover 2013

Ah the irony of this title. To talk about Passover with a Julian Calendar year following it seems so ironic in some ways. Yet, even this irony cannot surpass the irony most would find with our little family Passover celebration this year.

For one thing, I had just given birth to my son, Micah, and was told by my midwives that I was to rest for two weeks and not do anything or go anywhere. Of course, I couldn't let Passover pass by without some celebration of it, no matter how meager.

Secondly, we knew my husband's children were going to their mother's house where they'd be drowned in Easter eggs and candy for a week, so we really wanted to celebrate Passover before they left. This meant we had to pull it all together a day before Passover was to actually begin.We decided that celebrating it in Spirit was more important than getting the day right.

Thirdly, the company we had ordered our baby chicks from called us that morning to ask us to pick them up. You see when you order baby chicks for a certain week, you don't really know what day they'll show up, but the call came and so my husband loaded up the kids and off they went for the 2 hour drive.

On the way, I had asked my husband to pick up some lamb, Matzohs and parsley - the three items we didn't have. Only he returned with dried parsley in a shaker bottle, because he didn't know what I needed it for.

In addition, we had just begun attending a new church about two weeks earlier. A family from the church, who my husband had previously known, had been very friendly to us, so we decided that morning to invite them for dinner. They came with their four children who are still at home, joining our family which consisted of my husband, my mother and me and our five children ages 4 days to 14 years.

Just before dinner, I discovered that the parsley was dried and not fresh, that the lamb was chops and that we didn't have enough chairs. I swapped some baby spinach for the parsley, pulled a bench up for some of the kids to share, stuck the chicks in a box in the basement, did an internet search for cooking lamb chops, found our old Hagaddah on the computer, strapped the baby onto my chest with a wrap and sat down with my computer for my husband and I to lead Passover. There were missing words in the computer document and we didn't have any printed out. It was thrown together, it was rushed in a way that it shouldn't have been, but all in all, we tried. It was a special meal with special new friends, our children heard the same lesson for the second Passover in a row and hopefully some of it is making its way down deep into their hearts.

It was not at all how I wanted it to be, but it was Passover. God was there with us. And, well, he'll accept as an offering even the most disastrous, meager attempts at honoring his Word.

Incomplete Church

I recently read The Incomplete Church by Sid Roth. When I began reading this book, I made it about 30 pages before I had to put it away. To the bookshelf it went, and then to the moving boxes, only to be rediscovered about 10 months later. Having forgotten why I put it away, I picked it up again.

Sid Roth himself can be hard to take. His focus on the supernatural can wear on you. I am a believer in the supernatural myself, but I also am cautious to not demand signs and wonders from God. Throughout the Bible, God cautions about looking for, asking for, demanding, or refusing to believe without a sign. I believe He calls them a "wicked and adulterous generation" (Mt. 12:39, Mt. 16:4).

That said, after 10 months, I grabbed this book and started reading again and found it to be filled with scripturally sound beliefs. That's not to say I agree with everything wholeheartedly, but I do find value in the book, and truths that I had not earlier considered have now deeply embedded themselves in my heart.

However, one area I struggle with personally is the way he interprets the concept of "to the Jew first." While I agree that we must evangelize the Jewish people, I also hesitate to devalue God's works of the past. Roth claims revival can only come when we have first evangelized the Jew successfully. Yet, what does that mean for the revivals of the past? Were they not genuine?

We must love the Jewish people. We must be grafted into the vine alongside them. We cannot escape this fact. We must evangelize them, loving them in this way. We must pray for them to return as the once prodigal son did, and we must be cautious to avoid any false doctrines, like Replacement Theology.

Overall, The Incomplete Church is a good work. I feel it has some flaws, but I also feel it is worth reading with caution, testing everything against the Word of God.

http://www.amazon.com/Incomplete-Church-Unifying-Gods-Children/dp/0768424372/ref=la_B000APK9OW_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1366737803&sr=1-4