Sukkot was the very first festival of God that I ever celebrated.  Last year (2009), we were invited to a "camping trip" with special speakers.  We loaded up the whole family and headed to the lake.  Now, this was the first time that I had by choice celebrated Sukkot but I did remember a time when my parents invited us to dinner and we ate out on their backyard deck(2005).  My dad told the kids to gather sticks and he began to place them through the lattice over our heads.  We then ate and blessed God and looked through our Sukkah to see the stars.  It was a fun night with not alot of meaning for us.  The only reason that it was special was because not only was my dad grilling and preparing supper but my mom was full force into the preparation.  My dad makes dinner look easy.  He is a natural born chef and can cook up some award winning recipes.  My mom, more or less, fulfills her duty as wife and mother; so when she is excited to be preparing and serving it gets your attention.  My mother has one great passion and that is the scripture.  That night she was putting it into action and it thrilled her.  We just all observed and enjoyed the good food.  As I look back now I am so thankful for this memory with my mother and father.  This was just before they moved to the other side of the earth.  When they returned for a visit it just happen to be Sukkot 2009.As if our home was not temporary enough for them they were journeying to a lake in Dallas for Sukkot, with or without us.  I had missed them so we decided, Corey decided, to join them.  When we got there we did not want to leave.  In fact, the kids stayed.  Yes, M.K. who was the only one not home schooling skipped school and stayed at the lake to celebrate with my parents.  Corey and I came to get clothes and food and headed back to the lake.  To my surprise, a lady from New Braunfels was sharing on "being the bride of Christ" - my favorite subject!! This got my attention.  For me, the question arose - what does the bride of Christ look like?  After celebrating Sukkot last year I was convinced that I will always celebrate this day. I was even more convinced after I read the scriptures of the priest and prophet, Zechariah.  Zechariah 14 tells us that our Lord will stand on the Mount of Olives, east of Jerusalem... the Lord will be King over the whole earth.  v16 Then the survivors from all the nations that have attacked Jerusalem will go up year after year to worship the King, the Lord Almighty, and to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles.
Our celebrations now are obedience and just a shadow of how things will be with our Father.  It is a sweet picture.  It is an answer to prayer, to discover this truth in my Bible.  My children are getting a clear picture of what they are holding out for.  Especially for the girls, I had asked God to give them a picture in their minds of how the bride would feast with her King.  This is worth living for.
Now, this year, we will be in Jerusalem for Sukkot 2010!  All of my guide books say that this is the time to visit.  Everyone is out of their home and in a Sukkah!
I have given you my journey through Sukkot by backyard grilling and camping at the lake, so here is the specific instruction:
First, let me restate Galatians 3:29.  If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
FYI - I love being an heir.  Study this verse out.  What is an Heir?  What is the promise?  This is worth your time.
Next, Leviticus 23:39-44.  v41 Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year.  This is to be a lasting ordinance. v42 Live in booths for seven days.  This is to remember that those who obeyed God in Egypt were saved.  They came out a mixed multitude.  Anyone who believed the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were saved and began their journey to the promised land. 
This is a great foundational truth for us to know as believers.  This is an amazing miracle that our children love and must know to understand the God they choose to believe in.
On the holiday of Sukkot, we are commanded to dwell in temporary shelters or booths, as the Israelites did in the desert after the Exodus. The commandment to "dwell" in a sukkah can be fulfilled by simply eating all of one's meals there. However, some people study the scriptures and even sleep in the sukkah. This is what we are hoping to experience in Jerusalem.
Sukkot is a seven-day fall festival which takes place on the 15th of Tishri and commemorates the sukkot (Hebrew for booths or tabernacles) where Israel lived in the wilderness after the Exodus.
Building a Sukkah is a memorable and fun family experience. Children of every age can help just as we did that first celebration.
On Sukkot, we are commanded to use Arbat HaMinim, the four species, to "rejoice before God." The Four Species are: 1) Etrog (lemon-like citrus fruit) 2) Lulav (palm branch) 3) Hadas (myrtle branch) 4) Arava (willow branch). The three branches are bound together and referred to collectively as the lulav.
With the Four Species in hand, we say a blessing and wave the species in six directions (east, south, west, north, up and down) to symbolize that God is everywhere!  As we did this at the lake we truly felt different from this world.  I am sure we looked different too.  For us this celebration takes us into the scriptures where it tells us that we are just passing through.  This world is our temporary dwelling.  Do not get too comfortable!
Our family started this day by watching a film on Netflix about Italy.  They have some cool traditions.  Once again I found myself considering our traditions that we were passing on to our children.  I am interested in our German heritage.  I also love Texas and am proud to be a Texan but lately I have been thinking about being an American.  What a great country that would allow us to have freedom to worship in our own way.  I don't know if this will always be the case.  While it is, I want to examine my identity.  As an American, Texan with ancestors from Germany I want to remember that when I accepted Jesus Christ, I took on the identity as a child of God.  I was adopted.  I must take up the traditions and customs that are important to Him.  Rather than spend the summer tracing my family tree online I am going to grasp tightly my Bible and maybe head down to the little German town of New Braunfels for some river time.  Join me!

Shavuot/Pentecost

This week we celebrated Shavuot for the first time in our home.  Shavuot, meaning weeks in Hebrew is known by Christians by the Greek word Pentecost, meaning fifty, because it is celebrated fifty days after the Day of First Fruits.  This feast is also referred to as the Feast of Weeks and Feast of Harvest.
We had been counting the omer since Passover Sabbath and anxiously awaiting this holy day. 
After the Israelites escaped Egypt and were in the promised land they were told to celebrate the harvest.  It is agreed that this is the time that God gave the commandments to the Israelites.  Exodus 19:9-25:20:1-21. 
For me this was a very life changing day because as I have been studying his great instructions, I have been asking the Lord to teach me to love His word and live by it as David did.  David says that God's scriptures are perfect.  Psalms 119 says, how can a youn man keep his way pure? By living according to your word.  I will seek you with all my heart; do not let me stray from your commands.  I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.  David says that he delights in God's decrees and that he will not neglect his word.  He then asks God to open his eyes that he may see wonderful things in his law (hebrew, meaning instruction).
So, as children of God, we have been given his law/instructions to set us a part and make us a holy people.  The great part is that when all the people were in Jerusalem celebrating this Holy Feast Day of Shavuot, and being obedient to His word, He poured out His Holy Spirit on them. (Acts 2) 3000 people came to know the Lord on this day when the disciples began to speak in the foreign languages of the people.  This was a great HARVEST.  This outpouring of the Holy Spirit had been prophesied.  Jeremiah 31:31-33 and Hebrews 8:8-13; 10:16&17.
That which was written on the tablets was now being written on their hearts.  God began His harvest by giving the Holy Spirit, that we should make disciples of all men. 
In our home we read the traditional Shavuot passage of Ruth and asked the Lord to accept us as He did Ruth when she followed Naomi and said,"Your people should be my people and your God my God."
Jesus gave us this freedom to be called the children of God and then He gave us the great councelor, the Holy Spirit, and wrote His word on our hearts.
We asked God on this Shavuot to pour out His Holy Spirit on our family so that we may not sin against Him.
Then, we celebrated!  We grilled outside and made root beer floats and ice cream sundaes.  We visited our good friends and danced before the Lord.  We waved the loaves of bread before the Lord for the first time in our lives and were overjoyed to see our children give thanks for the harvest of bread as well as the harvest of unbelievers.  Once again, this feast day taught our children God's ways.  It helped us all understand that although Jesus had to leave us, that He gave us what we need to be called the children of God. 
This was not only comforting to me but the children finally were able to understand the purpose of the Holy Spirit - to obey His scriptures and make disciples!
This is why we celebrate the feasts.  This was God's design for how we are to teach others and our children.  This is His curriculum.  It is without fault. 
His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path.
To consider what the word law refers to click on the link Law&Grace under pages at the top right.

Jordan - The Royal Tour - Part 5

Justification Statement

I have so many people ask why we are going to Jordan and Israel on our trip.  Most people think we should spend the whole 3 months in Switzerland or Italy.  We have a great answer but it is long.  I am blogging about our trip and all of the details and so I thought that I would put into practice what God is working through me.  I am going to write about this journey that our family is on.  I will write about our love for His word and the truths that I am seeing for the first time while studying His word.  I will write about how God is making me a student of His word. I have spent my whole life asking God where He wanted to send me and what I should do for Him.  He has shown me this year that He wants me to honor His words that He gave me and be His.  That is it and this is how I am doing that.
This year we have taken a step back to check ourselves out and identify what we like about our lives and what we don't so much.  Habits, traditions, addictions, customs and other things that consume our time have all been taken note of.  It has been like a fresh start for us. 
This all started with my Saturdays when I would open the BIG Bible up at the Robert Carr Chapel between weddings and begin to read.  It was usually opened to Psalms, Proverbs or Isaiah because it looked even and perfect up on the lectern. 
Isaiah talks about God's people taking up traditions and customs in the lands they go to.  He warned them, but also said that when you see that you have done this, turn from your ways and come back to God.  I asked God to show me ways that I had turned from Him.
Some things that began to stir within me were, for example, my family genealogy.  I recently obtained much knowledge about my dad's family.  I often visit my families farm in Rhineland, Texas.  This is where my great grandfathers came and settled when they left the Rhine lands of Germany.  This information just raised my attention to the awareness that our country is fairly new and we all come from people who lived very different lives. 
That takes me to the other thing that raised my awareness of how times throughout history, beliefs, traditions and customs took drastic turns.  I have been studying the Renaissance Period with the kids.  We wanted to jump to this time period because of our trip to Europe that is coming up.  First, I took them quickly through early civilization, modern civilization, etc. to get us to the Renaissance.  For the first time I began to realize that History is History, but that does not make it right.  What I mean is that just because things happened a certain way does not mean that it was the right way.  Many times people stood up and said, "hey, this isn't right," and many times they got their heads cut off.  So, I want to say, "hey, we forgot something" and I hope that you will all read for yourselves Leviticus 23 and consider if you think these Holy Days are important to our God. 
For the history examples, let me bring your attention to the Holocaust, the Crusades, slavery and our taking land away from the Indians.  These are just a few times where things were done that were not right and yet only a few great people stood up and said, "this is wrong." 
One very important time period for us to consider is the time of Constantine.  Constantine was the emperor of Rome who made claim to be a Christian.(see Constantine under pages- top right) Under his rule the church took some drastic turns.  It is worth your time to look up the Council of Nicaea.  We find that throughout history the church and government were one.  You can look back at the time that Jesus was born to see how the Roman government reigned over the land. 
Leviticus 23 in MY Bible tells us of wonderful feast days and my question was, "who keeps these feast days and why do I not know anything about them?"  The answer would be, the Jewish People keep these days and the reason that I don't know about them is because of our church history.

One of the best parts of my job as the Wedding Coordinator at TCU was getting to meet all of the different officiants for the weddings.  Sometimes, (so fresh in my mind) I would meet as many as 4 in one Saturday.  They were from every denomination and very willing to educate me on their traditions and customs.  I had two invite me to a Passover Seder meal.  I quickly learned that in my office of Religious and Spiritual Life at TCU that each denomination had special days and I found it necessary to look at the early church as presented in my Bible.