This week has held such sweet expectation as I've meditated on John the Baptist' prophetic outcry: "Behold! The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." This is the happiest time of the year; God’s spring feasts are here! Passover, Unleavened Bread and Firstfruits have become an annual anchoring for me, to the deep & profound ways in which God leads His people in remembering. Did you know that Jesus fulfilled each of God's spring feasts during the events of this week two thousand years ago? This season is packed with spiritual depth for those wanting more in their walk with the maker of the heavens and the earth, and I'm here to make my small but mighty declaration to anyone listening, go for it. press in. seek the face of Jesus. dive deep into the hidden things. The table is set; let the hungry come.
Since making our grand exodus from Pope Gregory's calendar a few years ago, and adopting the calendar Yahweh gave to Moses at Mt.Sinai, this has easily become the happiest time of the year for me. It always did make sense that a calendar begin in spring and not the dead of winter. Right? So at long last, after the long days of the long months of winter, spring, the beginning of another new cycle of seasons with God! …when everything dead comes back to life, and God's seasonal rhythms begin all over again.
Changing my entire mental approach to time keeping was definitely a challenge at the beginning. But as with all things pertaining to God, life only gets better, richer, fuller, & deeper the more we say 'yes' to Him. I've found myself falling in love with His cycles of growth & remembrance. He just knows all the best ways to keep our hearts engaged! His thoughts are so much higher, you know!? So—if Exodus 12:2 says Nissan 1 is the beginning of the year to God, then it's the beginning of the year for me too. Sigh. That felt good to say. God’s spring feasts are so powerful! Did I mention yet how this is my favorite time of the year? …But honestly,then Shavuot or Pentecost rolls around in the summer, and I think, “No, this is the happiest time of the year!” We get to celebrate and remember the Holy Spirit coming down with wind and fire and anointing from heaven (!!) AND on the same day the perfect law of YHWH came down and was given to Israel at Mount Sinai! Mmm. There is always so much more to be unpacked in these feasts and in all of God’s ways then initially meets the eye. Paul says in Colossians 2:16 that the very substance of God’s feasts is Christ. In fact, he says some phenomenal things pertaining to how God’s feasts build us up in our faith as they are a shadow of Christ.
“As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power…So let no one judge you in food or in drink, or regarding a festival or a new moon or sabbaths, which are a shadow of things to come, but the substance is of Christ. Let no one cheat you of your reward, taking delight in false humility and worship of angels, intruding into those things which he has not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the Head, from whom all the body, nourished and knit together by joints and ligaments, grows with the increase that is from God. Therefore, if you died with Christ from the basic principles of the world, why, as though living in the world, do you subject yourselves to regulations—“Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle,” which all concern things which perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? These things indeed have an appearance of wisdom in self-imposed religion, false humility, and neglect of the body, but are of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.” Colossians 2:6-10, 16-23
And then when the air shifts cold and the leaves begin their colorful descent, Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets comes along representing the day of the gladness of His heart; the wedding supper of the lamb…and again I think, “No, this is the happiest time of the year!” Ha! My point is, the Creator has appointed festivals just like the world has appointed festivals. Yahweh wants His people Israel (Jew & Gentile) to celebrate the things He’s done and the things He’s promised to do. God has a calendar!
Out of 7 mo’ed, meaning “appointed times” or “appointed meetings,” only one of these mo’ed God instructed Israel to keep is a fasting day; the day of Atonement. This is phenomenal! Our God is a jovial, feasting, bridegroom King, who plans parties for His people! This whole story is leading to the biggest celebration of all time when Christ will return and fulfill the fall feasts with judgment day, a wedding, and the Father making His forever home with mankind once again. His whole calendar revolves around honoring, celebrating, and remembering the story of our redemption—and the Bible says He calls these appointed times of remembrance His feasts and His Sabbaths. (Leviticus 23:4, Ezekiel 20) The Word says in Psalm 119:160, “The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.” Isaiah 56 along with many other passages tell us that we’ll be celebrating the feasts of the Lord in the age to come. And Jesus said,
“Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. For assuredly, I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled. Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:17-19
Before Holy Spirit revealed His Biblical calendar to me, I thought the Leviticus 23 feasts, and 7th day Sabbath were Jewish things. That’s what everyone else called them, anyway. But Leviticus 23:4 is clear: these mo’ed are God’s eternally appointed times for His people to gather and remember what He has done and still promised to do. When I learned that Jesus fulfilled the spring feasts in His first coming, and will fulfill the fall feasts in His second coming, I was stunned at how much potential revelation from God I was missing out on by chalking these things up as “Jewish things.” I don’t like leaving food on the table, so I dove in.
If these feasts aren’t Jewish but Yahweh’s, who are they for? Do they have a dispensational anchoring to the past, or are they for all Israel, for all generations? The Bible answers these questions very clearly. God’s ways are for His people Israel to walk in for all generations. So who is Israel, then? Well, doesn’t Paul teach us who spiritual Israel is? Doesn’t he explain in great detail that the Israel who is God's people is a mixed multitude of Jews and Gentiles with circumcised hearts? a people from many tribes, nations & tongues who have been made one in Christ? two branches grafted into one tree? a holy, set apart people who follow God’s ways and established patterns in heaven?…Doesn’t Paul teach in Romans 11 that Gentile believers will one day provoke Jews to jealousy, unto their salvation? Doesn’t it seem more likely that a Jew would be made jealous of a Gentile because they see the Gentile embracing God’s ways and walking in His promised blessings? How could a Jew be provoked to jealousy by a Gentile keeping Gentile holidays, and not the joyful Feasts of Adonai? Paul is clear that Israel does not strictly mean ‘Jewish people’ and I believe it’s time to begin truly fleshing this out in our lives. In Ephesians 2, Paul identifies gentiles as former outsiders who have now been brought near by the blood of the lamb, and become part of the commonwealth of Israel. Again in Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he said, “...if you are Christ’s, you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” Galatians 3:26-29
“For he is not a Jew who is one outwardly, nor is circumcision that which is outward in the flesh; but he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter; whose praise is not from men but from God.” Romans 2:27-29
So, the Leviticus 23 feasts are God’s not the Jews’, and they were given to Israel to keep; God’s people for all time. We gentiles have been grafted into God’s root and attached to the branch of Israel. This is the great mystery Paul expounds on throughout the book of Ephesians. Christ unites all things together in Himself. God’s calendar is one aspect of living according to His ways and not the world’s. His calendar is designed to keep us rooted and built up as the body of Messiah—with feasts rooted in Christ, not man’s tradition. Jesus fulfilled the spring feasts during His first coming, fulfilled the summer harvest feast with the giving of Holy Spirit on Pentecost, and will fulfill the fall feasts in His second coming. It’s amazing! I can’t tell you enough how FUN it is to study these things! Here’s the bones of it:
Jesus fulfilled Passover by becoming our Passover lamb; killed for the sins of the world. He gave up His life as a pure and spotless sacrifice that would once and for all fulfill the just requirement of the law for our sin, because only blood covers sin. His blood now covers the doorposts of our hearts, releasing death’s claim to us.
Jesus fulfilled the seven day Feast of Unleavened bread by becoming the sinless (unleavened) bread from heaven that was broken for us. A bread He said gives life to the whole world.
Jesus fulfilled the Feast of Firstfruits by resurrecting from the dead three days after Passover on the Feast of Firstfruits, becoming the firstfruits of resurrection; from death to glory.
God’s calendar keeps us rooted in Jesus, and the profound way He leads us in His paths of righteousness. One day soon Jesus will return, and when He does, He will fulfill the fall feasts in His second coming. The first of the fall feasts is Yom Teruah, the Feast of Trumpets, a day of shouting and great joy; a day of gathering together, feasting & resting from work. It’s the marriage supper of the lamb found in Revelation 19:6-10 and it’s the day I look forward to more than any other. Next is the day of Atonement; the day the books will be opened and the inhabitants of the world judged. This will fulfill Revelation 20:11-15. And lastly, He will fulfill Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles, when God will make a new heaven and a new earth and tabernacle among men once again. (Revelation 21)
I can’t fully put into words how good it has been traveling through the year with my family on God’s calendar. His ways have become so beautiful to me. so life-giving. so full of joy. Like the writers of that amazing Hebrew acrostic poem, Psalm 119, I’ve learned to say that His statutes are perfect, reviving the soul; a light to my path. If God calls us to remember and keep sacred what He deems sacred, why do we so often hold onto those things the world has taught us to commemorate? Why does the flesh love the feel good tinglies of familiar more than the rush of joy in obeying God’s Word? These lessons are hard fought and hard won. I want to get back to living the cross— “Not my will, but Yours be done.” "Less of me, more of Him." Paul said,
“Therefore purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us. Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” 1 Corinthians 5:7-8
For most of us, we didn’t grow up knowing anything about God’s calendar, and that’s okay. My opinion and conviction is that we've been raised in spiritual Babylon, and that’s no fault of our own. That’s just where we’re at in the story…but in these last days, God is doing a new thing, just like He told us He would in Isaiah 43. He is calling His ekklesia, the Greek word we interpret as Church which means “called out assembly,” to come out of the world and it’s systems, traditions, and calendar, that we may teshuvah (repent & return) to the ancient paths God called Israel back to through the prophet Jeremiah.
“Thus says the Lord: ‘Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls.’” Jeremiah 6:16
I have so much more on my heart to share with you about these things the Lord has been teaching and leading my family in these last six years. God spoke very clearly to me in 2016, “Come out of her, my people.” The context of this verse in Revelation 18:4 is the End Time judgment of the harlot Babylon, and God, calling His people to come out of her, so that they aren’t judged with Babylon. We've been on the most incredible journey with God of Abraham ever since. Over the last year, I’ve taken on the monumental assignment of writing a book about all the Lord has taught me as I’ve sought to obey His Word to me that day in 2016. Penned in all the strung-together, in-between moments of the million and one things that keep my hands busy throughout the day, I’ve had such a sweet time with the Lord writing this book and am believing in God’s perfect timing for completion and release. I would so appreciate your prayers over my work! And please stay tuned for updates! This book is for you. You guys have asked, and God is delivering! I'm so honored to be the vessel He's pouring through in this way and in this time. It's been an amazing process and I’m so grateful for this opportunity to be used in the Potter’s hand.
As we head into Yahweh’s spring feasts beginning with Passover on Thursday at sundown, let us carry a deep reverence and awe as we remember what our God Emmanuel has done. He has crushed the head of that serpent of old! He is the first born from the dead! He is the Shepherd who gave up His own life for His sheep! He is the door to reconciliation with God! He is the lamb who was slain before the foundations of the world! He is the only One worthy to pick up God’s final scroll of judgment and break its seals! Praise the Lamb! Hallelujah! Glory to God! By His own arm He brought forth salvation for the world!
Love you guys! Shalom to you all!
—Natalie
Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He opened not His mouth; He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, And as a sheep before its shearers is silent, So He opened not His mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, And who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked— But with the rich at His death, Because He had done no violence, Nor was any deceit in His mouth.
Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him; He has put Him to grief. When You make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, And the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. He shall see the labor of His soul, and be satisfied. By His knowledge My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear their iniquities. Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the great, And He shall divide the spoil with the strong, Because He poured out His soul unto death, And He was numbered with the transgressors, And He bore the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors.
Isaiah 53:4-12
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