Are you excited about entering the season of joy this year?
We have confessed our sins. Atonement has been applied. Everyone has moved closer to God. We have prepared our offerings and are ready to lay them down on the altar of God.
OUR JOY IS FULL
Because we come in readiness, willing, eager and anxious to be living a Kingdom life, God has filled our souls with great anticipation. As we come to The Feast of Tabernacles, the seventh and last of the annual feasts of God for this civil year; our hearts are filled with complete joy.
The last of the annual feast on the Hebraic civil calendar actually happens in the first part of the new sacred year of the Hebraic calculated sacred calendar. We are beginning our annual time of worship with holy hands, lifting them up to our Great God with great thanksgiving and praise. He is the One who has brought us to this state and this place in time.
THE TIME HAS ARRIVED
Are you ready for The Feast of Tabernacles 2024?
The world we live in has regressed into a very sad state. Fortunately, we are about to walk away from the worldly and enter into a different state. There is a different type of news going on at our feast sites. It isn’t coming over the radio or the internet; it is pouring down from Heaven. This is the Good News of The Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is all we will listen to for the next seven days.
Every day of our normal civil lives we hear talk of wars, both physical and spiritual. Satan knows his time is short. The shofars we heard back at The Feast of Trumpets declared that we will not let him defeat us. We are going to celebrate our faith in the fact that there will come a time of rest in which Satan and his demons will be cast away forever.
THE OVERCOMERS ARE GATHERING
Those who go to the Feast of Tabernacles with hearts full of joy and great anticipation of focused time with God The Father are overcomers. The world may be raging with hate, chaos and confusion, but we get seven days and one great last day to think of nothing but the millennial reign of Christ and what that is going to mean to us.
Our hearts are glad!
A WEEK OF HOPEFULNESS
It is a wonderful thing to start the new sacred year with so much hope. As people travel to the places where God has put His name for their celebrations, the wonder of God’s Kingdom of Heaven brings out the joy factor and nourishes our souls. While we travel the roads to the Feast, anticipating the love of God’s people gives us great hope.
As we come and present our offerings, we will experience a taste of what it feels to have everlasting peace. All will feel acceptable under the wings of God’s love.
PEACE ON EARTH
Each year as we journey toward the feast site, I catch myself singing that old song called “Let There Be Peace On Earth.” The rest of the world often thinks of this tune during December when they attempt to celebrate the birth of Christ during the wrong date.
One of the things we do at the Feast of Tabernacles is to recognize that this is the real season of the time of the birth of Christ. You might even catch us singing Christmas carols.
Our joy increases as we ponder the old, old stories of His birth. This year I am taking a sweet little story to read to our family group. It was written by the children and grandchildren of The Voskamp Family. They formed the story into a beautiful little book for sale by their company called The Keeping Company.
The book is colorfully illustrated by Aurora McGee. I think it was intended for those who keep Christmas in December, but we will adapt it to our belief that Jesus was born in The Fall of the year during The Feast of Tabernacles.
A TIME TO SHARE OUR STORIES
The story was appropriately named The Light Gift and it is a sweet telling of how a Christian should be living as they are anticipating God’s next exciting events. The big event at the end of the story is a more-true possibility and telling of the story of the birth of Christ.
I can’t wait to share this sweet story as we begin our feast. Many thanks to the Voskamps for being a part of our sharing at the Feast of Tabernacles, even if you are unaware of the joy you are bringing to us in your storytelling.
PASSING ON THE LIGHT OF LOVE
Using the traditions of the story in that little book, we will place the manger on a table. It has a star that shines over it. After I read the story I will pass the star on to one person in our group. That person will need to take advantage of one moment in the next day from which they can do a good deed for another in the group. After they do their good deed, they take a piece of straw and lay it under the manger, then pass the star on to another person.
By the end of our celebration the manger will have a good supply of hay. From day-to-day, no on knows who has the star, or who will be waiting for the right moment to do their good deed. After doing so they will then pass the star on to another and place another piece of straw under the manger.
We will be doing this all through the seven days of our feast. Just another little blessing in action to make us think about our joy. Of course this will also help our celebration of Jesus’s birth become even more festive.
CELEBRATING THE BIRTH OF CHRIST
On one night during our feast we will have a birthday cake for Jesus. That night we will light the candles which will symbolize The Light of the World.
When we all blow out the candles, we will watch the smoke travel around the room and think of the miracle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We will realize in that symbolic moment the many wonders The Good News has brought as the smoke fills our sukkah. Also we will realize that it all came from humble beginnings and grew and grew until it filled the whole earth.
We will celebrate those old stories at our feast. Each day will be a different gospel story.
BRINGING OUR OFFERINGS TO GOD
As we bring our offerings before God, (three times a year they are required and this is one of those times) we will consider them to be gifts to our Savior. We will remember how the wisemen brought gifts and placed them before the child Jesus because they knew He was a true King of All Kings. The star will help us to celebrate this fact. This week is all about the reign of The King of All Kings.
Some will bring offerings of food. Others will offer service. The offerings come in many forms, sizes, shapes and colors, but each one comes from the best that the person has to offer. Whatever is done for anyone during feast is as if it were being done for Christ. We see Him living inside all of the many faces at the table.
JOY IN ACTION
There are other symbolic ways we will find to put actions to our joy at our feasts. One is in the loving way we will decorate our sukkah.
Everyone will bring their own form of artwork whether it be a drawing, a song, a story, a piece of music from the guitar or the piano, or a festive dish they have prepared for our mealtime.
I am bringing a string of lights this year to hang up around the walls of the sukkah. They will proclaim once more that we gather to worship The Light of the World – Jesus Christ.
All will contribute to this great celebration of joy. Much of that time will be spent sharing in the sukkah, but we will also enjoy the beauty of the creation given to us by God. Also; there will be feasting in abundance!
The changing colors of the fall festivities will remind us of how God made all species. It takes all of us to come together to build The Kingdom of God. The members of God’s Church are as varied and as lovely as the changing leaves. We love to watch both things happen each fall. The people and the leaves are constantly changing. They are all following the path God has for them. Each one is different in their own way. God paints the colors of our lives uniquely.
A TIME OF LOVE
I’m loving the love that we will be able to share in these beautiful set-aside days of rest and worship. It is exciting to think the time is only hours away now.
The sharing, the restful moments, the peace, the festive meals, all are about to happen. These heart-warming moments will all contribute to the way we are rehearsing the coming Kingdom of Heaven. Each moment we celebrate will symbolically speak of the 1,000 year millennial reign of Christ. If you wish to know more this link might help: https://www.ucg.org/beyond-today/beyond-today-magazine/jesus-christs-1000-year-reign-on-earth,
Each year as we enter into this rehearsal there is that same curious question:
Will this year become the REAL year when all of the rehearsing is finished? Are we possibly near the time that Christ returns for His Bride The Church?
Only The Father knows.