Hosea 11:7-12
My people are bent on backsliding from Me.
Though they call to the Most High,
None at all exalt Him.
8 “How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, Israel?
How can I make you like Admah?
How can I set you like Zeboiim?
My heart churns within Me;
My sympathy is stirred.
9 I will not execute the fierceness of My anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim.
For I am God, and not man,
The Holy One in your midst;
And I will not come with terror.
10 “They shall walk after the Lord.
He will roar like a lion.
When He roars,
Then His sons shall come trembling from the west;
11 They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt,
Like a dove from the land of Assyria.
And I will let them dwell in their houses,”
Says the Lord.
12 “Ephraim has encircled Me with lies,
And the house of Israel with deceit;
But Judah still walks with God,
Even with the Holy One who is faithful.
As we approach the Jewish New Year 5782 Rosh Hashanah’ meaning head of the year. “Head of the Year.” The New Year begins with the sounding of the shofar which is a wake-up blast and a sobering reminder that the time is near for the Day of Atonement. This is the beginning of a ten day period leading up to ‘Yom Kippur’ the Day of Atonement, the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. These days are known as ‘Days of Awe’
It is a call to ‘teshuvah’, which is repentance, turning back to the LORD, Leviticus 23:23-25.
These ten days are days of great introspection, heart-searching and self-examination. The sound of the shofar for the Jew was, and still continues to be, a call to examine their life, to make amends with all those they may have wronged in the previous year, and to ask forgiveness for any vows they may have broken. So the primary theme of Rosh Hashanah is one of repentance.
Like all the Lord’s appointed days Rosh Hashanah points Christians to an even greater reality. For those who have placed their faith in ‘Yeshua’; The Word of God clearly shows us, as in our recent Bible readings (Hosea 6:1-3 & Hosea 10:12) the true meaning of the call to repentance and of turning our hearts toward God. The God of the Bible indeed has a Book of Life. The Bible clearly warns us that on the Day of Judgment, which is yet to come, anyone’s name not found in the Book of Life will reside in the lake of fire for all eternity (Revelation 20:15).
For all those who have placed their trust in the atoning work of Jesus through His life, death, burial, and resurrection (2 Corinthians 5:21), their names are already written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. And now, even we believers in Jesus listen for that trumpet call, “For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words” (1 Thessalonians 4:16–18).
LET US ASK THE HOLY SPIRIT to help us to fully grasp the deep significance of this ‘Kiros’ time and season. May this be a time of deep soul searching; a time of taking, as it were, ‘spiritual inventory’.
LET US ALLOW THE SEARCH LIGHT OF THE HOLY SPIRIT to examine our hearts in a deeper way. We do not want to be liars and deceivers as part of our reading today in Acts 5 so evidently showed us, which had deadly consequences. But instead May we be those who continually walk with our God in sweet fellowship!
Micah 7:18-20
Who is a God like you, who forgives iniquity and passes over the transgressions of the remnant of His heritage? He retains not His anger forever, but He delights in mercy and loving-kindness.
He will again have compassion on us; He will subdue and tread underfoot our iniquities. You will cast our sins into the depth of the sea. You will show Your faithfulness and perform the sure promise to Jacob and loving-kindness and mercy to Abraham, as You have sworn to our fathers from the days of old.
SALVATION OF THE JEWISH PEOPLE
Isaiah 62:1,7 – For Zion sake I will not hold my peace…
Romans 10:1,13
PRAY for Jewish people all over the world, at this time, as they prepare for ‘Rosh Hashanah’ and the ‘Days of Awe’. Pray that they will hear the ‘Wake Up call’ of the Holy Spirit and come under heavy conviction, repent and be saved!
2 Corinthians 3:14-16
PRAY for the veil over their hearts and minds to be removed as they confess their sins and turn to the Lord.
Timothy 2:26
PRAY that they would come to their senses and escape out of the snare of the devil.
Luke -9:10
PRAY for a spiritual awakening throughout the nation’s to their spiritual lost-ness and a revelation of who Jesus Christ is; The ONE who came to seek and to save that which was lost.
PRAY for the Lord’s purification work to take place in hearts of the young and old among the Jewish people in this season.
May our hearts be kept pure and clean so that out of the abundance of our hearts our mouths, like a shofar, will constantly declare the prophetic Word, as faithful witnesses.
LET US offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, at all times, that is the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name.
Hebrews 13:15
Through Him, therefore, let us constantly and at all times offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, which is the fruit of lips that thankfully acknowledge and confess and glorify His name.
Leave a Reply