As we enter this season of Rosh Hashanah, also Biblically known as "The Feast of Trumpets"
Rosh Hashanah begins a ten day period known as "the Day of Awe" that take us into "Yom Kippur"
The single most Holy Day of the Year - for the Jewish people.
The "Day of Atonement".
Still to this day Jewish people around the globe will take time to fast and pray and reflect on their life. All through the "Days of Awe". Seeking reconciliation with G-d and with other's in their life.
As a believer in Messiah - these High Holy Holidays are so much more glorious to me!
Knowing that Yeshua - is The Lamb of G-d - slain before the foundation of the world.
That Messiah has come once for all (Isaiah 53) and we are but awaiting His second triumphant return - THIS - gives me such a glorious feeling inside my heart and spirit I can not explain! A hope! The Apostle Paul writes about it in the new covenant - about the Messiah being HIS hope of Glory!
I was sitting here in prayer this morning and the Isaiah 53 would not leave me - so I read it.
What a perfect way to start the Days of Awe !
Then I started to get get it......
Why is it that we (G-ds people) can't just forgive others as Yeshua forgave and continues to forgive us?
Here are a few scripture that popped into my head.
"If you love me (Yeshua) you will keep my commands..." John 14:15
"Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me;..." John 14:21
and....in short...what does Messiah command?
John 13:34
"A new command I give you; Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another....."
Wow - I don't know about you but those alone are pretty powerful scriptures in and of themselves and I just took three scriptures of hundreds of them to choose - pretty much telling us to do the same thing.
I am most confident every believer has heard these three I have chosen at least one time or another.
I know I have.
If we go a little further in John 13 ch verse 35 Messiah continues to say,..
"By this (loving each other like I loved you) everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another. (like I loved you)"
**** I would to stop here and draw the readers attention to a few things***
As humans - have you ever noticed our need for justification? Just to be able to forgive someone?
It's seems also very important to for us to have stipulations and in many cases boundaries when we forgive.
Have you ever thought about that?
The whole part about forgiveness and our need as human beings to feel justified and stipulate it's necessity.
Why is this?
Why do we feel that we can only forgive if.........?
or
We will only forgive but we will never forget....?
And then we tell ourselves G-d is okay with it?
Ummmm - No?....That is right. No!
G-d is not okay with it. You can reference the scriptures above if you like...
"A new command I give you; Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." (Like I love YOU as I just mentioned in my last sentence........"I" added this part to make my point)
As I sit here this morning with Messiah - sitting in Awe and reflecting on all that HE had done for me -I can't help but be amazed at my audacity to think I can "fell I have a right" to hold a grudge. Place a boundary. Stipulate in ANY way forgiveness.
I have no justification. I have no right to stipulate.
As he has forgiven. I am commanded to love others as HE LOVED ME.
"Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." John 15:13
Messiah Yeshua laid down his life for me in thee most horrific manner, suffering ways I can't imagine, for me, while I was yet a sinner....forgiving me...AND FORGETTING.....casting my sin into the sea of forgetfulness. As far as the East is from the West!
I have NO RIGHT - nor does anyone who wishes to call themselves a disciple of Messiah - to love any less.
I have been challenged this Rosh Hashanah
Who has believed our message
and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?
2
He grew up before him like a tender shoot,
and like a root out of dry ground.
He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him,
nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.
3
He was despised and rejected by mankind,
a man of suffering, and familiar with pain.
Like one from whom people hide their faces
he was despised, and we held him in low esteem.
4
Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering,
yet we considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
5
But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.
6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.
7
He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
8
By oppression[a] and judgment he was taken away.
Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
for the transgression of my people he was punished.[b]
9
He was assigned a grave with the wicked,
and with the rich in his death,
though he had done no violence,
nor was any deceit in his mouth.
10
Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush him and cause him to suffer,
and though the Lord makes[c] his life an offering for sin,
he will see his offspring and prolong his days,
and the will of the Lord will prosper in his hand.
11
After he has suffered,
by his knowledge[f] my righteous servant will justify many,
and he will bear their iniquities.
12
Therefore I will give him a portion among the great,[g]
and he will divide the spoils with the strong,[h]
because he poured out his life unto death,
and was numbered with the transgressors.
For he bore the sin of many,
and made intercession for the transgressors.
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