Greetings
from HomeWorship 101™
- “…The feasts of the Lord,
- which you shall proclaim to be
holy convocations,
- these are My feasts.”
- - Leviticus 23:1
-
- “These are the feasts of the Lord,
- holy convocations
- which you shall proclaim at their
appointed times.” - vs.4.
The
spring season of YHWH’s Holy Days will soon begin. The
above verse clearly states that these are YHWH’s Holy Days not just
Jewish Holidays, and that we are to proclaim them at the “appointed
times”. This year, once
again, man’s preprinted calendar is not quite in harmony with the
sighting of the New moon. In
the above quote, appointed times means YHWH appoints the times, and HE
show us the times by signs of the moon (Ps.104:19). See my Holy Day
dates web page, http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_days_calendar.htm
The Holy Days are a treasure trove
of our CREATOR'S Wisdom. YAHWEH
is trying to help us, and in HIS infinite wisdom HE designed the Holy
Days to have many in-depth and multilevel meanings, all with perfect
symmetry leading to one place - HIS Kingdom.
They have historical lessons - which we should honor by their
remembrance. They teach
current day character building lessons - which we should learn.
They teach us health lessons for the mind and body.
They are a “shadow of things to come” as they picture a
prophetic, Messianic message of hope.
They are future prophecies of human catastrophes with many on a
planetary scale (Col.2:16-17) - which we all should watch for
Many
Christians are just learning about, and starting to celebrate, the
Biblical Holy Days,
and there are many excellent reasons to do so. In this year’s
newsletters please allow me a little latitude, as I teach the basics of
YHWH’s Holy Days as one big 7-act stage play in the greatest Spiritual
Opera of all time. At the
end of the Holy day Season I’ll publish all the newsletters as one PDF
file.
Before
we start, some opera background.
No I’m not going to sing this to you – be thankful for that. This spiritual opera is a union of music (the psalms and some
parts of the Torah are harmonized and put to dance), drama (good vs.
evil, always lots of drama), and spectacle (YHWH wrote and prophesized
this opera, need I say more).
The folks behind the opera:
YHWH is the writer director (the person who directs the dramatic
interpretation of the show and is generally in charge of the
production). HE is the
lighting director - the person who creates the lighting concept (YHWH
created the light and shows us HIS signs by the heavenly lights).
YHWH is the costume designer – the person who designs and
creates the clothes that the characters wear (YHWH dictated in very
great detail the clothing the Temple Priests must wear).
YHWH is also the set designer – and all the world is HIS stage.
The Stage manager and production manager are the Archangels.
The stage crew (the team of people, who move the sets and stage
pieces), are the other Angels of Light who help humanity.
In the gallery the four strange creatures and the 24 elders have
the best box seats, and all the angels and beings of the Kingdom make up
the general audience seating (Rev.ch.5).
Yahshuas’ last message for humanity:
- “Let not your heart be troubled;
- you believe in God, believe also in Me.”
-
- “Peace I leave with you,
- My peace I give to you;
- not as the world gives do I give to you.
- Let not your heart be troubled,
- neither let it be afraid.”
-
- “For God has not given us a spirit of fear,
- but of power and of love
- and of a sound mind.”
- John 14:1, 27;
2Timothy 1:7
One of the ways YHWH shows and teaches HIS
Faithful the spirit of peace, love and sound mind is by
revealing to us HIS Ancient mysteries and prophecies for the future
through HIS annual series of Holy Days.
Today in the western world it is easy to read our Bibles, watch
spiritual shows on TV, or surf the Internet for information.
But it was not always like that.
During the Middle Ages houses of worship developed beautiful
Biblical pictorials brought to life in the vivid colors of stain glass
windows. Because books were
scarce and most people could not read, stained glass windows along with
painted wall or ceiling murals were used by church scholars and teachers
to educate the faithful.
In ancient times our CREATOR
designed a formal sacrificial system to be used at the
Temple in Jerusalem to educate the faithful in HIS
Kingdom lessons (Books of Exodus and Leviticus). In this system HE used everyday objects
to picture a higher spiritual reality of life.
One picture is worth a thousand words (such as witnessing the
sacrifice of the Passover lamb). The
scribes and the teachers of the day would be explaining the spiritual
meaning behind the symbolism of the Temple events.
There is no wasted motion in the activities of YAHWEH,
and there is a picture of a higher spiritual purpose designed into every
movement of all the Temple observances.
When all the Holy Days are seen throughout the year, they join
together in a great Spiritual Opera of YAHWEH’S plan of
restoring HIS Kingdom to Earth.
I call it a Spiritual Opera, but these Holy Days have been given
many titles throughout the centuries such as: “GOD’S
Calendar of Redemption,” “GOD’S Calendar of Redeeming
Grace,” “The Sacred Calendar of the History of Redemption,” etc.
In the Heavenly Kingdom these Holy Days took a
great deal of planning to produce the multifaceted Kingdom
lessons. They are more than
just an ethnic tradition. They
teach the BIG picture, the really B-I-G picture, as a spiritual opera of
all humankind’s evolution as if it were one grand stage play from
chaos to eternity, complete with interlocking spiritual symbolism on
many levels, which are still current today.
Remember, YAHWEH’S
plan for humanity’s destiny gives us all hope for the future.
It is the same spiritual “story of hope” told to Adam and
Eve, and passed on through their descendants as an oral history all the
way to Noah. After the
flood, Noah taught this same oral history to his descendants.
The key action figure in this Spiritual Opera was revealed in the
first prophecy to humanity recorded in the Adamic Covenant, the promised
Messiah. Now the Heavenly
mysteries will be revealed to all humanity through the theater of the
portable Tabernacle and the permanent Temple of the Hebrew people, at
Jerusalem.
The Angels sweat the details!
Even in the Kingdom there is paperwork, and the Angels put a lot
of work into bringing YAHWEH’S
design to reality. They had
to do intensive research. They
had to be sure the specialized materials would be available for use by
the people. They had to
catalog the time cycles over thousands of years.
And they had to be sure that all the events were executed with
perfect timing.
All the spiritual lessons point to YAHWEH’S
Kingdom. We
acknowledge the Holy Days out of respect to our CREATOR.
And we if watch, HE teaches
us their higher spiritual lessons.
Understanding the lessons bring us peace.
Peace of the mind, peace of the heart, peace
for the growth of the spirit, peace in our house, peace in
our community, and peace to our nation.
The greatest joy any soul can experience is sharing this
knowledge with someone else.
~ The Holy Days of the Early Church ~
- “I
have given you an example to follow…”
- -
John 13:15
- “Do
not go beyond that which is written…”
- -
1 Corinthian 4:6
The Holy Days of the Early Church
are listed in Leviticus ch.23. Not
to be confused with secular or traditional “holidays,” these are
“Holy Days,” because they are ordained by YAHWEH. Yahshua and the disciples kept them, and so should
His church.
“Respect is what we owe - love is what
we give!”
These are Holy convocations,
a time to put the daily drone of our material pursuits aside, and take a
day to honor and pay respect unto our CREATOR.
We show love and respect for our Heavenly FATHER,
through study, thanksgiving, songs of praise and dance, and joyous
feasting with friends and family. This
in turn will strengthen your mind, body and spirit.
YAHWEH in HIS
infinite wisdom designed the Holy Days to have many in-depth
and multilevel meanings, all with perfect symmetry leading to one place
- HIS
Kingdom. They have historical
lessons - which we should honor by their remembrance.
They teach current day character building lessons - which we
should learn. They are
a “shadow of things to come” as they picture a prophetic,
Messianic message of hope. And
they are future prophecies of events (some on a planetary scale)
yet to unfold (Col.2:16-17) - which we all should watch for.
Some Christians argue that the Old Testament ways
died on the cross with Yahshua, this is simply not true.
If you are going make a spiritual commitment, it’s a
no-brainer, you gotta get behind something that lasts forever.
Leviticus ch.23 clearly states, four times, that the
feasts “are a statute forever”(vs.14, 21, 31, 41).
And they are an everlasting sign between HIM and all HIS
people.
Yahshuas’ journeys to keep the Feasts are
symbolic of the journey of life every Believer walks in
this alien world. Yahshua
and the Disciples on occasion walked about 75 hot and dirty miles
through hostile territory from Galilee to Jerusalem to “keep the
Feasts.” On His way to
the Feasts, He at times endured hardships and sometimes He traveled
incognito, but He never missed one Feast celebration.
It is important to note that the early Christians understood that
Yahshua fulfilled the spiritual reality that the Feasts symbolized. There is ample evidence that the early Christians continued
to celebrate the Feast days and went to the Temple observances on the
high Holy Days until the Temple was destroyed in 70 C.E. (1Cor.5:7-8;
Act.18:21, 20:16).
These Holy Days are ordained for all the Believers
in our CREATOR,
because all together they picture the major spiritual steps in HIS
great master plan to save all the world from the destructive effects of
the dark powers. They are
the Holy Days which we will all celebrate forever (Isa.66:23;
Zec.14:16).
Unfortunately, primarily
because of Satan and his dark minions spinning their web of prejudice,
hatred for the Jews was drumbeated through the populace. Ancient as well as modern politics were against them, and
after some time, most - if not all - of these ancient lessons have been
lost or hidden from the general population of today’s Christian world.
As a matter of fact, Satan does his work well,
the spiritual lessons have also been lost to most of the Jews because
the rabbis heaped too much rabbinic tradition on them and smothered
their important original essence. When
pressed, Jewish religious authorities will confess that their current
customs are not 100% Biblically correct.
Today, most Jews
have merged the first and second Holy periods - Passover and the Days of
Unleavened Bread - into one holiday period called the Feast of Passover,
with some Jews performing a Seder on the first two nights. The third and fourth Holy Days - the Day of Firstfruits and
Pentecost - have been generally forgotten about. The fifth one - the Feast of Trumpets - is totally misdefined
and referenced as the ancient new years day.
The sixth one - Day of Atonement - along with Passover, are their
High Holy Days when even the marginal Jew will attend the synagogue.
The seventh - Feast of Tabernacles - is only kept by some.
Before we start, allow me to state one important
point: THESE ARE NOT JEWISH HOLY DAYS!
They are YAHWEH’S
Holy Days! It is easy to be
confused with non-Biblical, Jewish national-based, traditional holidays,
such as Hanukkah, Purim, etc., (national holidays are okay as long as
they do not replace YAHWEH’S appointed times
Ecc.3:1). Although some
Jewish national holidays have some interesting spiritual stories, for
this discussion, we are concerned only with our CREATOR’S Biblically
ordained Holy Days. Nowhere
does the Bible state that these “appointed times” were exclusively
given only to the people of Judah.
REMEMBER: The Judeans compose
only two of the twelve land holding tribes of Israel. “Jewish rabbinic tradition” dictating how to observe
these “appointed times” is exclusively for the Jews - the Holy Days
are for all Believers in our CREATOR, the entire worldwide Jerusalem Church.
Jewish, Christian, whatever, holidays can be hard. Today,
a Western religious “holiday,” means to many that our culture is at
its height of materialism and superficiality.
Plan it . . .. Buy
it . . .. Organize it . .
.. Set it up . . .. Prepare
for it . . .. Clean up
after it . . .. Afterwards,
work double duty to pay for it . . ..
Then they wonder: Who was enriched by the experience?
Me? My friends?
Or the corporate coffers?
During the Christmas or Easter season, some become
nervous wrecks as they hectically mall-walk searching for
the perfect present to buy. Some
get holiday headaches keeping up with the endless struggle to mail out
cards. And others get
stressed-out keeping up with the holiday pageants and endless dinners.
For many the sights and sounds trigger the loneliest time of the
year. Some go into a fog,
and some just glaze over. Some
become gloomy, or depressed and withdrawn, until it’s over.
Some just go out of town. Many,
happily go through the motions in ignorant bliss, never really quite
understanding why they do it, or even what the ancient “spiritual”
meaning really is.
Now if you are part of an interfaith marriage,
for example, a Catholic and a Jew, then you really have a challenging
quest in spiritual values to separate holiday rituals, from personal or
family habits of two different religious worlds.
When the kids are coming of age, what do you do?
Which one is the meaningful ritual to celebrate the season?
Do I add Hanukkah to Christmas or is it Christmas to Hanukkah?
Feeling completely lost, many say, “Ah the heck with it, lets
go to a yoga retreat!”
This is not our CREATOR’S
idea of seeking the meaning of life.
The Biblical Holy Days are more the just showing up to a
mandatory-ritual worship service. They are “appointed times” when YAHWEH
meets with HIS people - all HIS
people, and then the magic happens.
They are keys to a timeless treasure trove of Divine knowledge.
Some Holy Days are a joyous feast, fun and festive, filled with
song and dance, and some are serious.
Some are observed at home with family, and some are shared with a
large group - if possible.
Yahshua’s Faithful are commanded to grow in
knowledge and grace (2Pet.3:18), to be a living sacrifice . .
., transformed by the renewing of your mind . . . (Rom.12:1-2).
The Holy Days are a personal, spirit-training series of Heavenly
lessons, with subtle instructions which picture a greater spiritual
truth. They repeat every
year, lest we forget, to teach understanding, to all -
men, women and children - that our CREATOR
is still in control of the Heavenly Powers of the Universe and HIS
promises will be fulfilled.
YAHWEH’S Holy Days, dispose
of your demons through reflection and afflicting your soul, to
have a change of heart and repent.
They connect us to a Heavenly timetable - signs to watch -
and they give us hope for the future.
They put us spiritually in control and encourage us to: live-learn-and
grow - HONORABLY!
In homeWorship, the man, as the head of the house, would have responsibility to speak for the family
through the main prayers, but that does not mean a woman cannot add a
special thought before the prayers close.
The woman of the house would say the opening prayers while
kindling the candles, and children have a role to play too.
By performing a more intimate homeWorship observance, the burdens
and decisions, the good times and the bad times of this evil world are
shared together, reinforcing the family unit.
(FYI: If there is no man of the house, then the woman is the head
of the house.)
Contrast this with today’s Roman spiritual
training: Men are in, women are out.
Show up at the predetermined ritual, sit down, pay your dues,
listen to a sermon, get your blessing and go home.
Lack of real personal involvement has given many the
impression that GOD is only for the priests
and has rendered most of the male citizenry spiritually impotent.
Roman male training starts at a very early age
laying tracks to adulthood, and is based on competition for materialism
- not growing spiritually. To
be a man you have to compete to win, and to win you never show weakness
and never admit guilt - this attitude is tough on the family.
Feelings in the Roman world are a sign of weakness, real men do
not cry, never show pain, and never-ever show fear.
Consequently, especially when approaching
mid-life, many men do a lot of brooding, soul searching, or
as some call it, reflecting on a “convergence of experiences.”
They struggle with regrets, loneliness, and intimacy, careers are
often a disappointment, and they are generally disappointed with their
faith experiences. A life
of fighting for territory makes one reluctant to share the deeper inner
thoughts, and by mid-life they wonder: Who do I really connect with?
Today
faith has evolved into spectator event,
where the clergy perform and the laymen observe, Sunday service is
nothing but a religious production, and the church buildings with their
bigger is better design have more of a country club mentality then
mirroring the early church.
Jew or Christian the similarities run the same, the faithful have
forgotten that YHWH’s Holy Days are not just religious obligations;
they are a treasure trove of our CREATOR'S Wisdom.
GOD is not just for the
priests! HomeWorship
can and should be performed by every Believer in our CREATOR.
Even if one does participate in a religious revival, and promises
to make changes in their lives, they slide back into old habits once
they are away from the highly charged revival meetings, because the
spiritual connection is not properly continued at home.
YAHWEH'S
Holy Days are home Worship family days.
There is a time and place for “formal” ceremony and Worship
during the high Holy Days, but home Worship is less rigid, more
down-to-earth and from-the-heart. In
the time of the Apostles, there might be a service at the synagogue or
Temple, but then the faithful would go home, prepare a Sacred Meal, and
continue their Worship with family and friends. In Christianity it is called "Table Fellowship,"
and it is modeled after the Last - Passover - Supper.
Log on: http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_day_observance.htm
Spiritual magic happens (so
to speak), when you begin to understand the major spiritual steps
in a great Heavenly master plan from chaos to eternity. And spiritual magic begins, when a person, a married couple,
a family, or a group of like-minded friends is drawn together as they
begin to connect, with the higher spiritual powers of
righteousness, through the “art of performing” the acknowledgment of
YAHWEH’S
wonderful Holy Days. But
for magic to happen, you have to be there!
All humanity should be aware and follow the CREATOR’S
Holy Days, because planetary spiritual events happen on these
days that affect everyone - Believer or not! As further proof of YAHWEH’S
sovereignty, and solid evidence of HIS
faithfulness to HIS creation, HE
has engineered nearly every major spiritual event in history to occur on
a Feast day. Strange
anomalies? The critics may
argue, but many will believe, in the interest of diplomacy I will call
them “Coincidental dates?” and list some of them on the appropriate
days.
All Believers of our CREATOR
should acknowledge HIS Holy Days, whether you
believe in Yahshua as the Messiah or not!
Sometime in the future, there will be a day, you are standing in
line, and nervously looking up, you receive a majestic nod to step
forward and give account . . .. Never
let it be said, “you couldn’t do the least you could do.”
And the simplest “art of acknowledgment” of the Holy Days can
be accomplished by simply lifting your head, looking to the heavens at
the beginning of the Holy Day (in the evening sky, preferably facing
toward Jerusalem) and saying, “Thank you YAHWEH,
for showing me the signs.” As
one spiritually grows, then more time can be rescheduled to devote to
the observance/celebration of the day.
Just as any skilled professional is required
to take additional training or annual refresher courses.
These are the annual spiritual refresher courses designed by our CREATOR, for all of HIS
Believers to practice their spiritual training and maintain a high level
of performance - lest we forget and lose our way.
The concern is not for mandatory ritualism,
but understanding the truth for which it stands, and this
understanding greatly enhances our faith.
All the Holy Days together picture YAHWEH’S grand majestic
design of the unfolding spiritual events, affecting all humanity - that
is why it is meaningful to pass on HIS teachings to others
(Heb.9:10; Rom.7:6). The
early Christians were Believers, and therefore already saved.
The observance is not done for salvation - but of love and
respect for our CREATOR
and HIS Covenant with us (1Jno.5:3).
- Enjoy the journey
of learning…
- Ø
Holy Days: http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_days_intro.htm
- Ø
How to Observe a Holy Day: http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_day_observance.htm
- Ø
How to timekeeping: http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_days_timekeeping&calendar.htm
- Ø
Holy Days Calendar: http://www.homeworship101.com/holy_days_calendar.htm
Please
remember to pray for the peace of Jerusalem, and for all those who stand
with Israel (Ps.122).
- Take
care. Peace and
blessings, Errol.
- **********************************************
- Errol
Mueller, chronicler extraordinaire
-
e-mail: errol@homeworship101.com
- website:
www.homeworship101.com
- **********************************************
- WSC
Newsletter 2011-03a, posted 04/13/11.
-
- Copyright © 2011 Errol Mueller.
All rights reserved. Short
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they are copied in total with no alterations or deletions.
Author’s name, website address, and copyright notice must
be included. If any other use is desired, written permission is required.
- For information, email or call (334) 678-0913.
White Stone Communications (Rev.2:17), Dothan, AL.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Scripture
quotations are from the New King James Version of the Holy Bible.
- Copyright
© 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc., Publishers.
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