GOD'S WORD ENDURES FOREVER!

It is always exciting to share God's Word! The very fact that it is God's Word, from God....yes, from God Himself to us, is just so so amazing! These past 2 days have been an exciting and just a wonderful journey with the Lord....especially on Sabbath Day and today.

First, on Friday night. Sabbath Day starts from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday. Read Genesis 1....'the evening and the morning were the 1st day,...evening and the morning were the 2nd day,...etc' As a family, for the past year, we have made some efforts to take communion together and remember the Sabbath day as the Lord commanded in Exodus 20. This Friday, two days' ago (it is Sunday today) Noel invited a friend, a Christian brother over for dinner. Found out he was the one who gave me a couple of books on Jewish ppl and traditions to read a few months ago. The books were just passed to me by Noel, and I didn't know who they were from. This brother is such a funny guy and we had a great time laughing! Though he has never been to Israel but he has a great deal of knowledge of Israel and he seems to know quite a few places that I visited when I was there. I went to look at one of the books again that talked about the fact that when we get to heaven, it is ONE LONG SABBATH….resting in the Lord, so what we do on Sabbath here is a taste of what we are going to do for eternity. I was thinking a whole lot more of how meaningful Sabbath is....time of celebration, prayer, joy, family, and reflection upon our daily life, on a weekly basis. I was reminded of the Sabbath celebrations we had when we were in Israel...we spent 2 Saturdays there. This was what we did during Erev Sabbath (the eve of Sabbath, Friday night) :

The first thing that was observed was Lighting of the Sabbath candles. I didn't know what this was all about but read the following :

At least two candles should be lit. These represent "shamor" ["keep"] and "zakhor" ["remember"], the first words of the commandments [in the two Ten Commandments passages in the Torah] concerning Shabbat (Exodus 20:8; Deuteronomy 5:12). They also symbolize the unity underlying all apparent duality, such as man and woman, body and soul, speech and silence, creation and revelation.

   It was always lit by a woman (I wonder why?) and will only be lit by a man if there is no woman there.

   

   Then there was Prayer declaring who God is, the Creator of the Universe.

   

   Interspersed, there was singing of Sabbath and Praise songs. There was also a time of breaking of bread, eating it and drinking grape juice (though called wine), with more singing and ending with prayer. Then it is time to partake of a wonderful meal together!

   Just found this and watched it...a taste of the Sabbath celebration as we experienced in Israel, especially the prayers. I find that this all so meaningful...and I hope we will do it with greater appreciation of the Sabbath!

   Today, I was sharing in church, continuing my message Our God is a great and faithful God. It is truly amazing to read of the journey of the people of Israel with God...that God is the King of His people, and is in every aspect of their lives.

   God rules His Kingdom in a lawful way. The Kingdom of God is the centre of Jesus' teaching, and the centre of what He did. The Kingdom of God began much earlier than in the book of Matthew. In Ex. 19:5-8, God's Kingdom has a role, the people of His Kingdom should be anointed, accountable to the King. My Kingdom is a society, with all kinds of people. We are to be the people to bring God's Kingdom to earth....to the society. God ruled every aspect of society for the Jews. Today, we equate our religion with the KIngdom of God. God wants CHANGE, where whole civilizations coming into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is about training, and understanding what justice is. Let is be people of God's Kingdom....that is different, changed by the power of the Word of God!