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.
This article may be forwarded or reproduced but must include:  Used by permission of LonnieLane.com, September 5, 2016.

TASHLIKH & GETTING FREE

Middle Ages synagogue going to the river for a Tashlikh ceremony.

I am writing this on the first of the Ten Days between Rosh Hashana (the feast of trumpets) and Yom Kippur (the day of atonement). The trumpets announce that this is the time set apart by God for self-examination and introspection.  It is a time when each of us should look at our lives to assess where we are with God and with others. This is a time to ask ourselves where we have fallen short of what we really know God wants for us. 

Tashlikh is a Jewish custom of casting your sins away from you, ideally into running water. One person I know wrote all her sins on a stone and threw it into the ocean.  Not having an ocean nearby, it's the intention of the heart that’s at heart here!  It is possible to divest yourself of all that disturbs your peace, with God, with yourself and with others, by repenting of them, giving the whole matter over to God, then casting it far from you and being restored to His peace and His love. 

To Jews without Yeshua, it is the time for each person to examine themselves in order that their names would be written in the Book of Life for another year.  For believers in Yeshua, our names are written in the Lambs Book of Life, not for a year, but forever.  However, while this is not a popular theological position in our day, an examination of Scripture will reveal that only those who continue to walk with the Lord will be saved in the end. It is possible to fall away and not make it to forever with Him.  Yeshua states in The Revelation, “He who overcomes will thus be clothed in white garments; and I will not erase his name from the book of life, and I will confess his name before My Father and before His angels” (Rev. 3:5).  

Terrifying as that is (especially eternally) God provides anytime but also a yearly time to specifically look humbly at ourselves to see if we are truly walking with Him in righteousness. It may take some overcoming of our own flesh and ego and giving up having to be right, but there is a greater issue here than being right in our own minds; it’s being righteous which is being right with God.  

If our faith is in question, since “Messiah Yeshua is the same yesterday, today and forever,” (Hebrews 13:8) and our trust is not the same as it once was, GUESS WHO MOVED?  

Perhaps we have slipped from reading His Word and our thoughts are now far from Kingdom thinking. Possibly we come to realize we have been self-centered which is always prideful (satan's nature, not God's), or selfish, unkind or irresponsible in relationships with others. It may be that we have been self-protective instead of letting God be our protection, and we’ve walled ourselves in to keep from being hurt further.* The trouble with walls keeping hurt out is they also keep love and affection out and you wind up being in there alone. A warning about self-pity: It makes you a victim and victims never overcome. They remain powerless but God really is “our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1).  He does go to great lengths to make us “overcomers.” It’s our choice whether to receive it or not. 

 It does mean letting go of all that is not as you would have it be and “casting your anxieties on the Lord for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7). That “cares” not only means that your situation matters to Him but that He will take 'care' of the situations as we continue to trust Him to do so. When both parties in a conflict can do that He quickly resolves the pain and conflict. He is the ultimate and most wonderful Peacemaker!  

Forgives as God forgives us. He never brings up past issues!  Once forgiven, fully forgiven. “Love…doesn’t keep a record of wrong doings” (1 Cor. 13:5). Maybe you need to repent of record keeping which always drags along baggage and doesn’t allow the relationship to move forward in freedom and affection.  You may be holding it where you don’t want it to stay by keeping the failures alive between you!  Let it go. Give the forgiveness, accept the forgiveness!! If you can do that with the other person you’re in conflict with, so much the better. If the two of you can come to  God together – Wow, watch and see what He will do!!  

Even if it’s just about your own failing somewhere and doesn’t even include anyone else, ask God’s forgiveness and then forgive yourself.  If we are unhappy with ourselves, we generally know why. Somewhere we are out of touch with God and His love and total forgiveness. His love will always lead us to love ourselves and love others.  Remember the greatest commandment?  Love God and love others as you love yourself.  (See Matt. 22:36-40). That statement is worth a lot of pondering.  There are three individuals involved and how we relate to one is unalterably linked to how we relate to the other two. (Selah.) 

It may be that there are people who have hurt and/or disappointed you, and even angered you. What shall you do about those? Will you continue to let those hurts or disappointments define where your relationships – and even your life  - goes from here? Many do, at great loss. 

Keep in mind that when we are annoyed or hold resentment or anger toward someone else, or even when someone else’s ways really irk us, verbalizing our dislike to them or our (can I use the word) contempt for them really says more about our own hearts than about them.  We may feel better at first for “getting it off our chest” but if we have wounded someone else, our own hearts are not entirely free before Him who never dishonors us!

No matter what sin or failure we may commit, God always speaks to us with honor. Dishonor is not in Him.  Nor should it be in us.  Write it on a rock (or a piece of paper) and cast it where it will be far from you (flush it if you must; it is running water, right?). It may free you where you don’t even know you need to be free if you ask anyone you’ve lashed out at to forgive you and then bless them – like you mean it.  

I could go on. No doubt you could too.  Take these ten days (or any days) to look into yourself and ask God to show you yourself. If you’re afraid to, then you may really need to, in order to get free from all that disturbs your peace and love with Him, yourself or with others – maybe even those you love the most! Don't go on a psychological archaeology dig, but what God shows you or you know is already there, deal with and let it go. 

Bring the honor God always gives us back into your relationships, including for yourself, accepting it from Him and repenting of all that may hinder your peace and start anew.  

May each of our names always remain in the Lamb’s Book of Life forever. Amen.   

* This is not meant to forgive and then stay in an abusive situation. Where there is harm to you or others, you are justified Biblically to find a way out of that situation.