THAT'S SO LAME

With the eclipse so recent, literally putting a point on the new year of the feast cycle at the New Moon (Rosh Chodesh), it seemed proper to emphasize this year's pilgrimage through the feast. This is true specially in the United States where the eclipse bisected an already very divided nation.

The eclipse gave us a glimpse of a wedding ring, which for believers in Yeshua, is the covenant, particularly Shabbat, the sign of our betrothal. We protect its holiness while we await the Bridegroom's return. During each eclipse, we have a dramatic reminder.

For Americans, at the very least, I take this as a warning. Repent. Be set-apart. No more lukewarmness toward the feasts and Shabbat.

Pray.

Pray for the world, but especially Israel and our nation.

The new moons are a zikaron, or remembrance. It is an appointed time for Adonai to "remember" us, which means to purpose an action pertaining to us.

Attend Shabbat and each feast with like kind and like mind. Gather however you can. Each year at Pesach, you may have have started the journey through your last "sealing" on earth as we know it. It is your protection to the tribulation that accompanies those final days. Even as I write this, the ancient beasts of Babylon and Medo-Persia are crouching at the door.

In apostolic times, the Biblical feasts were seen as a seal of protection to those who celebrated them. Seven feasts, seven seals. Sound familiar? You can find the details in Creation Gospel Workbook Six.

We are living in a miracle so great that almost everyone is missing it...even those who are the miracle! What is even greater than the Exodus? The Greater Exodus! Israel being gathered from all the nations to return to her covenant, the Living Torah, and her Promised Land of covenant.

Isn't that greater than the Reed Sea parting? After all, it's been almost 2000 years since a large group of people dared to proclaim Yeshua the Messiah and walk in obedience to his Torah simultaneously. As with the wilderness journey, the arguments and chaos frequently obliterate the miracle-consciousness.

First, however, before the journey home, the "moral" return begins in the lands of exile. Before we walk and leap on the way to celebrate the foot festivals of Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot, we need healing. Thousands upon thousands are being healed of enmity against the Word and their Jewish brothers and sisters walking in the covenant.

In ancient times, Jeroboam put up barriers on the highways of Israel to prevent the tribes of the Northern Kingdom from journeying to Jerusalem to celebrate the feasts. By separating brothers, which is the seventh and most wicked of abominations, the northern tribes quickly lost their identity among the nations. To undo this separation has to be a work of the Ruach HaKodesh.

To reiterate how the Ruach works to knit together like kind, rather than scatter and separate, I'm including Chapter Two of Standing With Israel: a House of Prayer for All Nations. It describes how prayer brought Jew and non-Jew together at the time of the afternoon prayer and Temple sacrifice. This prayer is named after the sacrifice, the Minchah. It is also called Shemoneh Esrei, or Eighteen, after its eighteen individual prayers.

STANDING WITH ISRAEL: A HOUSE OF PRAYER FOR ALL NATIONS

CHAPTER TWO

JEW AND GENTILE: PETER AND CORNELIUS

The Shemoneh Esrei, whatever its form evolving in the Second Temple era, is a common prayer for both Jews and “God fearers” in Acts of the Apostles. Peter and John observe the hour of prayer: “Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.” In Acts, Peter and John are still accustomed to praying in the Temple at the appointed hour, and they encounter a lame man, likely a Jew, at the hour of Minchah prayer, the ninth hour. This is three o’clock.