TO YOU, BELOVED!

Priests blowing trumpets on Rosh Hashana

Stepping away from our study on Mark this week - I discovered an interesting Hebrew ‘love gift’ from God having to do with the Hebrew month of Ilul. (Ilul rhymes with it and rule). Ilul began on September 4^th and continues till October 2^nd (in 2016), when Rosh Hashana begins.  The word Elul, the name of this month, is written like this in Hebrew: אלול. 


These particular four letters, אלול in Hebrew can stand for “Ani LeDodi, VeDodi Li” – “I am my beloved’s and my beloved is mine” from Song of Songs 6:3.

There can often be found in the Hebrew Scriptures, hidden messages from God to His beloved people like a kind of code, or an acrostic. Proverbs 25:2 says, “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings is to search out a matter.”  Since Yeshua “has made us kings and priests to His God and Father” (Revelations 1:6 and 5:10), it is our ‘glory’ as His priests and kings to search out such meanings. This is one of them.  Knowing Hebrew helps, needless to say, but here’s a little help for any non-Hebrew speakers with the deeper meaning that’s found in this one.  

Ilul precedes the month of Tishrei when Rosh Hashana begins at sundown on October 2^nd.    Rosh Hashana is also called Yom HaTeruah, meaning the Day of the Trumpets. The sounding of the trumpets, the shofars, begins what is known as the Ten Days of Awe, the awe having to do with the reality that we live before a holy God and are accountable to Him.  These are ten days in which we are to examine our lives, to forgive whomever we need to forgive, and to repent wherever we have been lax in our faithfulness to the Lord, or knowingly disobedient to Him. After the ten days  is Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year, a day for fasting, not for feasting.  It is the Day of Atonement, when atonement is made by the High Priest for the whole nation for the coming year. If the people were repentant where need-be, the atonement would be accepted by God and each repentant person’s name would be written in the Book of Life for the next year.

Can you see the ENORMOUS significance that Yeshua’s atonement enabled all repentant persons’ names to be written in “The Lambs Book of Life” not just yearly but always!!  

For believers in Yeshua, whose sacrificial death was for all who will receive it for themselves, Yom Kippur is a day to come together with others believers to thank God for Yeshua’s atonement on our behalf. It is also a day in which many believers pray for Israel and the Jewish people world-wide, that the whole nation will come to know their Messiah and that God’s protection will be upon them – or however the Holy Spirit leads you to pray.  

If we want to say “repent” in Hebrew we say, “Lachzor b’Tshuvah.” Repentance in Hebrew always means a return to God to whom all things belong. The two words indicate such a return.  Lachzor means to return as one might go away from home and return later, and the other, b’Tshuvah is from the root word to respond, or reply, to come back with an answer.
Here’s another instance where God is in the details.  How lovely of Him to reveal this reminder of His love for His in the letters for Elul – אלול.  The quote from Song of Songs which the letters can represent let us know that we are to express our love to Him in return for His love to us. What a wonder that our God desires a relationship, not only with Israel but with all who make Him their God.  The turning of repentance and thanksgiving is like the turning in response to God’s great love and forgiveness.

Should the following be of help to anyone, just as an example of a repentance which any of you reading this may feel a ‘call’ to do, I recently felt for personal reasons that I wanted to make sure the slate was entirely clean between God and me.  I spent a few hours a day for two days asking God to show me where I might need to repent of anywhere I had doubted Him in any way, or didn’t respond when I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to give Him my attention or obedience. I also asked Him to show me where I might need to forgive someone who had hurt me, shamed me, disappointed me, rejected me, in the past or present that I needed to forgive or repent of where I might have been rude or uncaring toward someone else.  I wasn’t doing this out of any psychological digging up the past kind of remembering. I let the Holy Spirit in His gentleness bring instances or person up to me.
I was surprised that He brought things to my mind from my childhood where I needed to forgive someone. This was not out of any sense that He was displeased with me, but that He wanted to free me from any residual angst, pain or shame that may have been tucked away somewhere inside – places only He knew about. I simply extended my entire forgiveness to them and prayed for God to bless them, to meet their needs and to show them His love as He was showing it to me.  What a freedom! This was no an ordeal but an easy time spent with Him.

May I suggest that we all may have some ‘stuff’ clogging up our receptivity to His love. This is a good way to use the Ten Days or any days. Believers, Jewish or non-Jewish, have often observed that God especially blesses those who honor Him by recognizing His holy days in some way, often by making us aware of His presence and His delight in us.  

The cornerstone of all that God has for us is accessed by repentance and forgiveness. This leads us into a life of being wrapped in His caring love and grace.  His great grace is extended to all who will receive it. I suggest there is a higher level of His grace to be realized in each of our lives when we extend the grace He’s given to us to others, including to forgive people we may not have seen for years, even if they don’t know a thing about it.

Your comments would be appreciated below.
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