Today my home church community will be celebrating/observing Yom Teruah (that link will give you a little background on this holiday) and throughout this month we are actually in celebration mode for the majority of it. After Yom Teruah comes Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, and then we enter into Sukkot - otherwise known as The Feast of the Tabernacles (sidenote: it is widely believed that Jesus was actually born during the Feast of the Tabernacles, i.e. "the indwelling"). It's a lot of celebration with repentance and atonement mixed in for good measure.
I can HEAR you scratching your head in confusion and going, "WHAT?"
Yes, I believe in Jesus as the Messiah. No I am not, nor is anyone in my home church, a Jewish convert. Yes, I am a Torah observant Christian. No, I am not going to hell. :)
In the past few years I've been studying God's word in deeper and more intentional ways. As I have he has challenged me on how I express my faith and how I translate his word into my life. It has become my personal conviction that when he says "follow my commands" he means all of them, not just the ones that make sense or feel good to me. So because of that I have altered my expression of faith in Christ. This hasn't sat well with people who find out. Just sayin'. (That's a whole other blog! *wink*)
A piece of this expanded expression of faith in Christ is observing the holidays God outlines in his word for us to observe (You DO know that Jesus celebrated all of the ones I mention above right? He was...JEWISH and he was an observant Jew at that. Okay, just making sure we are on the same page here.). So today/tomorrow I, and my home church, will observe Yom Teruah - mistakenly called Rosh Hashanah - it could also be called The Feast of Trumpets. Yom Teruah begins a 10 day reflective time that ends with Yom Kippur. So Yom Teruah is a call (literally with a ram's horn, i.e. shofar, and yes a member of our church has one and yes we blow it) to righteousness, it is a call inviting God to search us and know us and reveal to us any wickedness in us. The next 10 days I will purpose to make sure that my relationships with people are right, that I am in tune to the sin in my life that God wants to deal with (I wrote about that back in the Spring, click here to read my thoughts on that) and that I let him deal with me and the sin. Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, in which as believers in Jesus we spend time recognizing that Jesus was our atonement for sin is observed and then we are partying again...in tents. Yep, in tents. Sukkot is The Feast of Tabernacles and is a huge celebration of God living with us, of God dwelling within our midst. It is very fun and festive as we thank God for his presence in our lives.
There's a few other holidays that help me hone in on right living but those are the ones up for this month. And as we prepare to blow the shofar at sundown tonight and allow God to examine our lives I am finding myself grateful for God's wisdom in the holidays he established for his people. Not only does God like a good party but he recognizes that the party is better once we've done the work of getting right with him (always him first) and others. I love that God's appointed times are times to make sure my heart is right so I can live right and then party to celebrate it!
I can HEAR you scratching your head in confusion and going, "WHAT?"
Yes, I believe in Jesus as the Messiah. No I am not, nor is anyone in my home church, a Jewish convert. Yes, I am a Torah observant Christian. No, I am not going to hell. :)
In the past few years I've been studying God's word in deeper and more intentional ways. As I have he has challenged me on how I express my faith and how I translate his word into my life. It has become my personal conviction that when he says "follow my commands" he means all of them, not just the ones that make sense or feel good to me. So because of that I have altered my expression of faith in Christ. This hasn't sat well with people who find out. Just sayin'. (That's a whole other blog! *wink*)
A piece of this expanded expression of faith in Christ is observing the holidays God outlines in his word for us to observe (You DO know that Jesus celebrated all of the ones I mention above right? He was...JEWISH and he was an observant Jew at that. Okay, just making sure we are on the same page here.). So today/tomorrow I, and my home church, will observe Yom Teruah - mistakenly called Rosh Hashanah - it could also be called The Feast of Trumpets. Yom Teruah begins a 10 day reflective time that ends with Yom Kippur. So Yom Teruah is a call (literally with a ram's horn, i.e. shofar, and yes a member of our church has one and yes we blow it) to righteousness, it is a call inviting God to search us and know us and reveal to us any wickedness in us. The next 10 days I will purpose to make sure that my relationships with people are right, that I am in tune to the sin in my life that God wants to deal with (I wrote about that back in the Spring, click here to read my thoughts on that) and that I let him deal with me and the sin. Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, in which as believers in Jesus we spend time recognizing that Jesus was our atonement for sin is observed and then we are partying again...in tents. Yep, in tents. Sukkot is The Feast of Tabernacles and is a huge celebration of God living with us, of God dwelling within our midst. It is very fun and festive as we thank God for his presence in our lives.
There's a few other holidays that help me hone in on right living but those are the ones up for this month. And as we prepare to blow the shofar at sundown tonight and allow God to examine our lives I am finding myself grateful for God's wisdom in the holidays he established for his people. Not only does God like a good party but he recognizes that the party is better once we've done the work of getting right with him (always him first) and others. I love that God's appointed times are times to make sure my heart is right so I can live right and then party to celebrate it!
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