When I first started blogging, I put a lot of careful thought and prayer into the things I wanted to blog about on this website. It felt like a mission, something that I was called to.
I wanted every word we said here to be right and in accordance with the destiny that God had designed to be our purpose. As I prayed, two subjects kept coming to the surface over and over again. I knew those two topics were going to be the center and the core of this blog.
Nothing has changed.
BIBLE STUDY
The first subject was about having a weekly bible study which would be written in simple, easy to read and understand laymen’s terms. This study would display the faithful and trusting heart of a child who enjoys seeking ways to know more of their highly adored Father.
All of that thought turned into the COME AS A CHILD weekly (every Thursday) on-line bible study which is now about to enter its seventh year. I know that number is accurate; because Word Press actually sent me an anniversary card! LOL.
The simple studies we do on COME AS A CHILD have (so far) produced three published books. These books summarize our Genesis and Exodus studies. (They are for sale on Amazon.com – The Gospel Hidden in Genesis Books One and Two and Exodus To Freedom.) In walking through the scriptures page-by-page and word-by-word, we have now arrived to the beginnings of a study on The Book of Ruth. That means we’ve already covered Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Deuteronomy, Joshua and Judges. This informative and very pleasant journey has only taken us seven years!
We have a great little community of 168 – 70 participants who are officially participating in this study. There are many others who drop in on us from time to time. The group which is growing (very slowly) is very dedicated and enjoys participating in the studies as they progress. Our whole group dutifully reads and faithfully comments as participants in our discussion every week. Anyone is welcomed to join in with us.
I know now that choosing the topic of the COME AS A CHILD BIBLE STUDY as one of the focus points of the blog was exactly what God had intended for me to do. I’m thankful for all the ways that He has blessed me and others through this weekly study.
SEASONS
The second thing that God put on my heart to blog about was much more complicated.
In the bible studies I referenced above, we can flip through page-after-page and follow the patterns that God has set out for us to study in a logical and organized manner. The writing is already there in black and white chapter by chapter. Everything has been miraculously recorded through the dedicated servants of God who have written and translated the scriptures over the years. God bless them every one!
However, nothing is that simple and easy to follow with the second topic I chose. I felt led to notice, explain, compile, memorialize and/or celebrate all of the sacred times and seasons of the gift of time that God gave to us during the beginnings of our own creation.
That topic has simply been called “SEASONS” in the topics indexed as tabbed dividers that categorize the blog’s articles and posts.
THE WEEKLY AND ANNUAL HOLY DAYS
Inside the SEASONS topic, I talk about the “seasons” that God commanded for His people to celebrate weekly and annually as well as some of the other “seasons” in time which only men have mapped out.
God gave us His holy days when He gave us the ten commandments.
Later; men have made labels for special days in which to remember the miracles and movements of God which happened long after God gave the commandments to Moses. God’s days are commanded. Men’s days are simply suggested as commemorations or memorials of certain events. They are called “post-Mosaic” holidays. This would include Purim and Hanukkah.
So I’m always looking at God’s Holy Days as well as mankind’s holidays. I’m studying what mix of facts are appropriate for Christians to observe and what facts are not appropriate.
I’m sorting and sifting all of the facts I know through the scriptures to see if they measure up to God’s original requirements.
The goal is to use careful discernment to determine when, how and whether or not these “times” are truly a part of the great big gift God gave to all of us at the time of creation called “time.”
OUR TIME DEFINES OUR LIVES WITH GOD
“Time” defines so much of who and what we are as humans. We are beings who are living within the creation which God created for us. He temporarily gave the care of this creation over to us to manage for Him.
The story of the creation mentions the fact that God separated the dark from the light, creating night and day. With this event He gave us a way to begin to measure our gift of time. We learned how to measure our days right after God created us.
As a matter of fact, God spent all of the next day (which He called the Sabbath Day) resting and spending time with us. It was the seventh day of creation. He stays with us in all of the other days we experience too; but those are work days. Those days are for completing the work that God has designed and assigned to each of us.
THE SEVENTH DAY IS THE SABBATH DAY
When the seventh day came along; that day was a day to stop and rest with God.
He sanctified that particular time.
God set the Seventh Day apart from all of the other days.
From the very beginning of our gift of time until now; every seventh day has been sanctified, set apart and blessed. As every seventh day ended, men were refreshed, nourished in God’s love, and completely rested. Not only that; but now we know we have a way to count our days and weeks.
NUMBERING OUR DAYS
God gave us evening and morning and a day, for six days.
Then evening and morning and a sabbath were given for a seventh day of rest with God.
This continual pattern made up our weeks. It gave us a way to measure and count our time. The weeks always ended in 7 days with the 7th day Sabbath.
GOD NEVER CHANGES
I want to stop here for a moment and simply emphasize the fact that God never changes.
We do.
Men change like the wind blows; but God is always right the first time. He has no need to change.
Never.
When God establishes something and tells us to remember it. He doesn’t come up a few years later and rearrange what He has already told us. No; He fulfills promises that His original facts built for us.
God never changes.
He is steady and sure.
ANCHORED IN TRUTH
Like a rock; God is solid and anchored in His truth.
When God commanded us in Leviticus 23:3 by stating ‘For six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there is a sabbath of complete rest, a holy convocation. You shall not do any work; it is a sabbath to the LORD in all your dwellings “ He was referring to THE SEVENTH DAY as the Sabbath; not The First Day of the Week.
Many people think that Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday, so God changed the Sabbath to Sunday.
Impossible!
God never changes.
DIFFERENT PRACTICES AND DIFFERENT DAYS
If you just stop and take the time to study the sacred appointed days which God gave to us when He created us; and you follow the scriptures all the way through the bible, studying the times that God set apart and called holy; you will come to some different conclusions than what most churches of today are practicing.
They will say that Jesus rose from the grave on a Sunday at sunrise. I can only tell you from the facts that I know from scripture that Jesus rose three days after the Passover. This might NOT have been on a Sunday; according to the lunar calendar kept by the Hebrews which they had received from God at the beginning of time as we know it.
GOD’S CALENDAR WAS NOT LOST
The Hebrews lost God’s calendar once when they were in slavery then spent time wandering out in the wilderness. God restored it to them by giving Manna from Heaven. The Manna fell for six days and they gathered a daily portion each day. On the sixth day they gathered double because God rested with them on the 7th day. There was no gathering or work to be be done on that set-aside and appointed day. This was how God restored the calendar that they had lost.
Many think this calendar that God gave the Hebrews was lost during the Babylonian captivity. However, there were faithful people like Daniel and Nehemiah that kept the calendar even while being held captive. It wasn’t lost and the priests of God explained it all over to those who HAD lost touch with it when the restoration of Jerusalem happened on the returns from captivity to Jerusalem during the days of King Cyrus.
I’m here to tell you that God didn’t change what He proclaimed from the beginning. His calendar is still accurate for us today.
MEN CHANGED GOD’S DAYS
Men are the ones who changed and rearranged the days.
You will not find God’s stamp of approval on these changes anywhere in the scriptures, though many have twisted a few words here and there and misapplied the meanings of some passages to try to make them say what they do not mean.
It is impossible. God never changes.
He wrote that commandment about the Sabbath Day down in stone and made Moses repeat it. The instructions were specifically for “the seventh day.”
Let me try to explain better with a silly little story I made up just for illustration:
A SILLY STORY FOR UNDERSTANDING
Once there were two children who loved their parents very much. A little boy and a little girl.
One day their parents took them to the neighbor’s house and said “We must leave you here for awhile, but don’t be afraid. We love you very much. It is necessary for us to be away. Though you do not yet understand why; this is actually for your own good. We will miss you very much. Also; we promise to come to this neighbor’s house again on every seventh day in the time we must be away. This is how we will have special visits with you. When we come again, we promise we will spend very special quality time together.”
So; the children were not sad because they believed their parents and the promises they had made to them. In that very first week they began to look forward to their parents visits with them.
However; one of the children liked the first day of the week better for the special time to be with their parents. He thought, if I just begin to keep this other day on my own; eventually they will come and join me on that day instead of the seventh day which they requested. So I will have my visits the way that I want them to happen.
The other child didn’t object to the day the parents had chosen. She eagerly went to the front door of the neighbor’s house every seventh day. With great excitement she met their parents on the front porch. The parents were full of joy at seeing this child who came to meet them on this special day that they had designated and set aside just for them.
The child who obeyed got to spend a lot of quality time with their parents. She grew up happy and well adjusted and loved, even though she had to live with the neighbor for a long, long time. The little girl knew her parents would always be at the front door every seventh day.
The little boy held stubbornly to his idea of keeping the first day of the week. He thought his parents would give in to his wishes and desires. The boy simply did not understand there was a good reason why they could not do this. He held to pushing his will on everyone else in the family and he would not change.
Every first day he would go out through the front door and sit down on the porch expecting to find his parents waiting. Yet; the parents never showed up on that day. He was sad; but he stuck to his plan. The little boy would sit on the porch and pretend that his parents had come for him but deep in his heart he knew they were not there.
Eventually this child felt neglected and unloved.
He grew into a very unhappy man who could not find joy.
His sister would sometimes talk with him. Patiently she would always remind him that their parents had specified a certain day to meet them for a reason. She didn’t know why they could not come on the day the boy desired to see them; but that wasn’t the way they had set up their visitation time. She accepted their logic without question because she trusted their love for her. Obedience was very important to the little girl. Having his own way was more important to the little boy. All the sister knew was that the loving parents always showed up on their stated day. They expressed how much they missed their son and wanted to see him. Gladly they got to see their little girl, and it always turned out to be a very special day for her.
This loving sister begged her brother to give up his idea of his own day over the day that their parents had appointed. He could not be convinced that if the parents loved him enough they would eventually change their mind and do things his way instead of their own.
It never worked out.
The young lady grew up full of joy; but the young man grew up sad and lonely. All he had to do was to listen to the original instructions and obey; but even after years of waiting he would not do so.
As the years went by the young girl who had met with her parents every seventh day realized something. Her parents had a reason for choosing this day over all of the others.
As a matter of fact, it was this day that anchored all of the other special things that happened during the rest of the year. This seventh day mapped out times when the parents would be able to take her away for a whole week instead of a whole day. The time was always counted from that seventh day when they visited for quality time with her. She knew this only because she had always shown up on the right day. All of the other special times evolved around this appointed day which they had set aside and blessed to spend especially with her and her brother.
FICTION OR FACTS?
Is this story making any sense to you?
Funny how we can sometimes relate to fiction rather than facts; isn’t it?
People can agree with this story. They can see the point but not even realize it is the same concept that happens when we fail to observe the seventh day as the Sabbath of God. All of the other holy days of God evolve around the foundation of this 7th Day Sabbath.
The silly little story simply shows how keeping the “seasons” of time and the years of our lifetimes works with God. He gave us a calendar to follow long ago. Men have changed it; but not God.
When we learn to keep the original Sabbath appointment that God made with us (way back in the days of Moses;) God brings us into even more sacred times and spaces. These are the times when He meets us for rest and worship in the spring holy days. In the middle of this special set-aside time; He gives us his story at Passover.
If we know when Passover truly happens, then we are able to count the fifty days until Pentecost.
Once we come to the right way to count our days until Pentecost, we can see the way God counts our days leading up to the Fall Holy Days; which He has set as special times put aside just to spend with us in rest. By knowing the counts from Elul into The Ten days of Awe and how these days are book-ended around Trumpets and Atonement; we can keep the proper count of days up to The Feast of Tabernacles.
THE CALENDAR GOD HUNG IN THE SKY
All of these days were pre-set on God’s lunar calendar from the very beginning when He hung his calendar in the sky. He made a clock in the making of the moon, the sun and the stars. They are God’s clock in the sky. He keeps His appointments with His people by the times He sanctified and set apart on this clock. All of it travels in sync. The creation keeps the rhythm of God’s time without interruptions or errors.
The clock of God in the sky helps us to number our days. It teaches us how to appreciate our great big gift of time which God gave us on our birthday into the world at creation.
WE MISS SO MUCH IF WE IGNORE GOD’S CALENDAR
If we miss all of this, and we do not count the days according to God’s sacred calendar (which the Jewish people have kept accurately for thousands of years,) we miss God’s set-apart, sanctified and appointed times.
We become like the little boy in the silly story above.
Sure, God is always with us; but He is with us in a different and very special way when we come to these appointed and sacred times. The boy always had his parent’s love inside his heart with him. Still; he never got to visit with them on the days they appeared with an uninterrupted schedule just for him.
Never has it been so important that we get the calendar we use right.
IT ALL STARTS BY KEEPING THE PROPER SABBATH
Keeping God’s time always starts with keeping the correct Sabbath.
If you want to be historically accurate, you will realize that men first decided to change the original Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday at the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. Until then the early churches, though scattered and full of different ideas, had all kept Saturday as a day of rest and worship. It took men gathering into a council to make a change. Men tend to want to do that. God never changes though.
God didn’t change – men did.
Nowhere in the bible does God say to change the Sabbath to Sunday.
Deuteronomy 4:2 says: Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the LORD your God that I give you.
MEN CAN’T CHANGE GOD’S COMMANDMENTS
Keeping the seventh day was one of the ten commandments. The scripture above and many others instructs us to never change God’s commandments.
Men changed the date from Saturday to Sunday. The Emperor Constantine was the first man to do so in a more official way. He was angry with the Jews for not agreeing with his way of governing. Constantine wanted to unite the people through religion so that they were more easily controlled.
So; he declared Sunday was to be observed as the Roman Day of rest saying; “On the venerable Day of the sun, let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” Note these are the words of Constantine; not God.
Later, the Catholic Church, through a gathering called The Council of Laodicea, changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. They called those who continued to keep Saturday Sabbaths “Judaizers.” Note the changes were made by the Catholic Church; not God. The Catholic Church even has documents that proclaim that they changed the Sabbath to Sunday.
By the time the Protestants broke from the Catholic Church, most churches had begun the “tradition” of keeping Sunday instead of Saturday as Sabbath. The Protestant Church simply continued this tradition. They did not base their Sabbath observance on the Word of God; but on the traditions of men.
AN ETERNAL SIGN BETWEEN GOD AND HIS PEOPLE
Out of ignorance, and the keeping of the traditions of men; many have now been led into keeping the wrong Sabbath Day through the ages and times of human history. Churches have not taught the truth about the Seventh Sabbath Day for a long, long time.
God said in the scriptures that the 7th Day Sabbath would be an eternal sign between God and His people (Ex. 31:13, Ex. 31:17, Ezekiel 20:12.) Will that be the way that God locates his people when Jesus returns to rule this earth in the future? If it is an eternal sign between God and His people; would God not look for these gatherings in the Second Coming?
There is also scripture which speaks of the “apostasy to come within the Church of God.” You can read the scriptures in 2 Thess. 2:3, Rev. 3:19, 1 Tim. 4:1-3 and 2 Tim 4:3-4 to know more. It is from within our own house that we are to become deceived. Jesus warned us NOT to be deceived when the end times approached. Are we paying attention to those words?
TRUE WORSHIP WILL SET US FREE
No one has the authority to change God’s commandments.
It is the people who have changed the day of the Sabbath; not God. Unless God changed it; we are in the wrong and are not worshiping in truth. Many seem to think this doesn’t matter. When did truth become unimportant? In the end the truth will be ALL that matters.
The truth will set you free.
As mentioned earlier; writing about our great gift from God called “time” can get to be very complicated. Sometimes it causes me to side-step groups and individuals I would love to become associated with. That fact makes me sad because I know that isn’t the way God intended for His people to be. Often I feel a lot like the little sister in the story I told at the beginning of this article.
However; it is also a wondrous thing to behold and observe the calendar that God created. It is a blessing to know and follow the calendar God hung in the sky for all of us to see. Once you start keeping this calendar with God, He will reveal revelation after revelation to your spirit. The discoveries are both amazing and delightful when the truths of God’s calendar begin to open up for you.
By this calendar we can count our days. It all starts with ripened grain from the barley harvest in the spring. One thing after another tells and instructs further until we come to the end of the year with a great celebration of the things God has taught us. We can know beyond a doubt when to celebrate the sacred holy days and how to make the times of our years count for God. He has made it very easy for us. Just keep looking up.
THE SKY TELLS THE STORIES OF GOD
If you ever doubt this; just keep looking up. The sky will tell you the stories of God.
It is an amazing story full of very special set apart times of celebration and joy with God Our Father. Once you go through a cycle of keeping God’s calendar with Him in His special way; you will never want to return to the calendar of men again.
Like the little girl in the silly story above; keeping God’s time will allow you to “grow up” spiritually healthy and happy.
By keeping the right Sabbath (visitation day) the little girl learned how to count the time up to other special days that her parents would come visit each year. Some of these times were longer visits. We could think of this part of the story as parallel to counting the days up to the holy days of each year.
If we have our Sabbath day counted right; we can know how to move ahead on the calendar in patterns of counts that take us to the spring holy days, then Pentecost, then the fall holy days. If we don’t observe the proper Sabbath Day; our counts would be wrong and the days would be off.
PROOF IN THE CURRENT YEAR OF 2024
This year especially brings out the obvious fact that counting God’s way, and counting the ways of men, simply do not match.
2024’s calendar for Passover happens on April 22nd. God’s way of counting has the Resurrection of Christ falling on the 2nd Day of Unleavened Bread (three days after Passover.) Counting from evening to evening for 24 hour days as God taught us in the scriptures; the remembrance of Resurrection Day for 2024 would be on April 25th – the Day of Early First Fruits. That is the day my house celebrates Resurrection.
Mankind’s calendar shows their day for celebrating The Resurrection of Christ (Easter) on Sunday, March 31st. Note that this day precedes the date for Passover. Some churches ignore this and just continue thinking of Good Friday through Resurrection Sunday. Many churches actually celebrate their time called “Easter” (you can’t find this word in the scriptures) BEFORE the time of Passover. Some churches ignore Passover all together. It is quite a mess when this happens on the calendars of mankind.
God’s calendar is always accurate though. Every year like clock-work Passover comes before Resurrection Day.
This is yet another case of when the logic falls out and the truth shakes to the surface.
Mankind’s day would make the Resurrection happen before The Passover. According to the scriptures; that is impossible. Passover came first, then the crucifixion, then the Resurrection. To put this more bluntly and make it easier for some to understand; you can’t rise from the grave before you are crucified.
Again; manmade days are wrong. God’s calendar is always right.
I wonder when will the Church stop being deceived? When will we quit following the traditions of men over God’s ways?
The truth matters.
I pray we all can learn how to follow the truth; because the truth will set us free.