PASSOVER, RESURRECTION, PENTECOST; GOD HAS A SPECIFIC ORDER TO THESE SPIRITUAL EVENTS
One desiring to live daily within the aspects of God’s Kingdom must learn and understand the progression of God’s order for salvation, redemption and sanctification.
God teaches us this in progressive pieces through the observance of the Spring Holy Days (Passover and Unleavened Bread with Early First Fruits), Summer Holy Days (Pentecost) and Fall Holy Days (Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and Feast of Tabernacles.)
When you follow and understand the correct progression; you receive all that you need to come into the giving of the Holy Spirit to God’s people on The Day of Pentecost.
We know the very first miracle of Pentecost happened with Moses when God gave the Torah.
The Holy Spirit is the personification of the Torah living inside of God’s people.
Over and over we see how God does things in a proper order following a series of patterns that progress from physical to spiritual.
God’s Holy Spirit came to us in a much later era of history; but on THE SAME annual calendar DAY as the giving of the Torah.
LIKE LITTLE CHILDREN; WE MUST LEARN THE CORRECT WAY TO COUNT OUR DAYS
God told the people to count from Passover to Pentecost; 50 days from the offering of the early first fruits sheath of barley after Passover until the offering of the wheat harvest.
They counted 50 more days and that brought them to the exact day that the wheat harvest was ready to be offered.
The wheat harvest was the larger crop, the most valuable crop of the year. This was the time of the Latter First-Fruits or Pentecost.
If the barley crop was good, and the wave sheath of barley was offered up on Early First Fruits; the Latter First Fruits offering of the wheat crop would be abundant!
The first observance brought blessings into the second observance. The harvest times progressed in God’s given order.
The current symbolism is that Jesus was our early first fruits offering, and we that believe in Him and belong to Him are the latter first fruits offerings from the harvest fields of God.
We are good and acceptable to God because He (Jesus, the very first of the first fruits offerings) is good and He now lives within our hearts.
Christ living inside our hearts and being a part of our daily lives makes our lives good and worthy for an abundant and complete spiritual harvest.
It is nothing that we do; but what He is able to do through us.
Without Him living within us; we are not worthy.
The perfect order of giving and receiving God’s love brings the spiritual harvest.
WHAT DID YOU BRING FOR YOUR FIRST FRUITS OFFERING THIS YEAR?
Some have chosen to imitate the offerings of Christ and give back to Him on the Day of Early First Fruits.
Each year we consider something new to offer up, knowing that nothing we do is worthy; but that we are honoring Christ with what we have as best we know how.
This was the lesson we learned from the story of Cain and Abel; to bring of our first and our best to God on the appointed day.
This offering should always be meaningful.
Many people give financial offerings; and that is fine.
Personally; I try to pick something different every year.
For example; one year I offered the gift of my writing. One year I offered the gift of using my body as an offering of service for God’s work. One year I offered more love toward my fellow-man and tried to implement something of these things into each day of that year as a form of my on-gong spiritual offering.
Keep in mind that a “tithe” is the first of your first and the best. An “offering” is what you bring above your tithe, it is not REQUIRED, but freely given in love.
Whatever you decide to offer; it should have meaning and significance between you and God.
This gift must be something that requires effort on your part.
It isn’t something that you can easily throw into an offering plate and forget.
This offering should last for the whole year in some significant way.
The offering is just a way to show your love and devotions.
It will not save you or redeem you. That is handled in a different way.
You can’t save yourself; that is God’s part of the equation; but you can improve yourself, and that is usually the first thing that comes of offering your first and your best to God on Early First Fruits.
IT IS ALL ABOUT COMING FROM THE HEART
When you come to Him from the wide-open heart of a willing child who wants to please his father; He grows you into a harvest that is worthy of The Kingdom of God.
Think of a plant growing in the sunlight; it takes action on God’s part to make the miracle happen. All the plant has to do is wait on God and receive the miracle.
We feel like we are giving the offering; but in reality; when we give it to God, God then begins growing us into someone useful for service. What He makes from what we give is truly a miracle.
Perhaps this time of sacrificial offerings is where the first practices of Lent evolved in the minds of religious men. A lot of the concept is the same. I see nothing wrong with a person deciding to join in and observe Lent; but I like to stay with God’s original calendar and rituals. It is the timing of things that makes this more appropriate and keeps the balance of God’s clock with all of the other parts of His plan.
The more I study the facts the more I feel the Hebraic way of doing this is better and more authentic towards God’s Plan for mankind.
CHRIST SET THE PERFECT EXAMPLE
Of course all of our human offerings fade in comparison of the perfect offering of Christ.
When God looks at our first fruits offerings though; He looks at the fact that we are willing and trying to imitate the love of His Only Begotten Son.
It is Christ living within us through God’s Holy Spirit that makes our offerings acceptable to God. He is our first; and our best. He is really the only acceptable thing we have to offer. The rest is acceptable because we are covered in His atoning blood which makes us right in the eyes of God.
Year after year, on the proper appointed days of God’s calendar, these spring offerings are brought into the storehouse of God.
This is one of the many ways that The Kingdom of God continues to thrive in the midst of the chaos of the world.
Early and Latter First Fruits offerings are our personal opportunities to participate in the glorious works of Heaven.
Jesus gave the first and best offering that provided the way to make all of our offerings begin to count for good.
Now we all must be careful to consider our own spiritual offerings to God on the appointed day of Early and Latter First Fruits.
THE CELEBRATION OF RESURRECTION AND EARLY HARVEST
Three days after Passover, we celebrated Resurrection. It happened on The Second Day of Unleavened Bread – the third day after Passover; the day of Early First Fruits.
Given such a spiritual miracle from God; we humbly, faithfully and obediently continue to do what we can to bring a spiritual resurrection into our present days.
In summary of how we go about this: we ponder what filthy rags we can offer to God and we offer up of our first and our best. We carefully observe Passover, Unleavended Bread with Early First Fruits/Resurrection and we wait for Pentecost to arrive in 50 days.
No offering will ever be as good and acceptable as Christ’s offering; but that is okay. His offering has made our offerings acceptable.
We must come to God thanking Him for Resurrection and new life.
Let us come dancing and singing and offering the highest praises.
We must bring of the best we can and lay it before Him.
Let us fall down and worship at His feet.
The ritual has not changed; but Jesus has made it possible for us to come before God with our very best.
Because of Christ and proof in the Resurrection; our offerings will be welcomed and acceptable to God.
PENTECOST IS A SIGN THAT GOD HAS ACCEPTED OUR OFFERING
What did you offer this year? If you forgot it isn’t too late. The 50 days of waiting are not over. You can still repent and turn before the Latter First Fruits harvest has arrived; but time is running low, do it now.
Which heart-felt, well examined offering did you decide to bring as you examined your life and counted down the 50 days?
Is there something new that you think God desires of you which you have never given before?
Then offer it up with a sincere heart and go into the Jerusalem of your heart and wait to see what God will do on Pentecost.
All of our giving will be multiplied back and returned to us in a million different ways from God as we come to The Day of Pentecost.
Pentecost reverses the trend of giving our offerings to God. It becomes our time to receive God’s gifts to us.
The holy scriptures say in Acts 1:8; “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Many witnesses saw this power fall on Jesus’s disciples as they waited in Jerusalem for God’s promises to be fulfilled in their day.
We must trust God to fulfill his promises as we wait in the Jerusalem of our hearts in our own day.
The day is fast approaching and we need for God’s Holy Spirit to fall on our country and do a work like we have never seen before.
Let this be our prayer together as we sit in grateful silence and wait on the next step of God’s spiritual plan for this year of our lives to unfold.