Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ Jesus,
Jesus Christ, The King of The Kingdom of God, ushered in a new government (Isaiah 9:6-7; Colossians 1:13), whose foundation is based upon the two greatest Spiritual Laws found in Matthew 22.
Matthew 22:36-39
36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love The Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
God is agape Love and agape Love is God (I John 4:16). This Love is the foundation for everything created good and perfect. Agape is a Greek word that means “pure, selfless, willful, sacrificial love.” It is the highest and purest form of love of choice and not of attraction or obligation. It is important to understand that agape love is not a characteristic or attribute of God, it is God. God is Love.
The most important characteristic of love is it must have an object of itself. “Object” means “a person or thing to which a specified action or feeling is directed.” God’s prized creation, the apple of His eye, is His earthly children. We are the object of Love. God extended His Kingdom, which He did originally with Adam and Eve, until the fall, to us through Jesus Christ. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are immediately translated from the kingdom of darkness and eternal damnation into The Kingdom of God’s dear Son, which is one of blessing and eternal life.
The government of The Kingdom of God is one of rest and renewal. It is ruled by The Lord of The Sabbath (Sabbath Day and Sabbath Year) and The Jubilee. The commandment for the Sabbath day and year and for the Jubilee was one of rest and renewal. Everything lawful in the Sabbath and in the Jubilee is wrapped up in the salvation God gives to us through Jesus. This means every required, lawful transaction during the Sabbath and the Jubilee is given to us, at once, immediately upon acceptance of Jesus Christ, Who is The Sabbath and The Jubilee. He is rest and renewal to us.
Let’s examine the Sabbath Day, the Sabbath Year, and the Jubilee so we will understand what we have in Christ Jesus and The Kingdom of God. In the Old Covenant, the Sabbath Day and Year and the Jubilee were all pictures or types of things to come in the New Covenant through Jesus Christ. What the first Adam lost, the last Adam restored.
Sabbath Day – man was commanded to stop toiling and sweating the one day during each week and to worship God.
Sabbath Year – man was commanded to stop working for the entire year and all debt was cancelled / forgiven.
Jubilee Year – man was commanded not to work for the entire year, all slaves were set free, and all land was given back to the original owners.
It is very important to remember the Jubilee Year, or fiftieth year, followed the Sabbath Year. In the Sabbath Year man was not to work, and all debt was forgiven. The following year, the Jubilee Year, man was not to work, slaves were freed, and all land was returned to its original owners. This is two years of not working, not seeding the fields, not harvesting, not toiling, not sweating, having plenty, and having everything completely forgiven, completely freed, and completely renewed or restored. Is this rest and renewal? Yes!! Not only this, but the year following the Jubilee, the fields were planted, and they waited on the harvest. The Children of Israel would go nearly three years with no crops. Who sustained them? Why of course, it was God.
Let’s have some fun and see the beauty of what God was showing us with the Sabbath and the Jubilee and what we now have in The Kingdom of God through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
The Sabbath day and Sabbath year represented the seventh day and the seventh year, respectively. The number seven has significant meaning in the Hebrew language.
Number Seven – Shvah [f.], sheevah [m.] Rest, cessation from work, wholeness, completeness, being ripe, order, stability, and holiness. We rest (7) in the finished work (6) of the Messiah (the Anointed One).
On day seven, God rested from His previous six days of work. This “rest” was not from exertion. It was from completeness. The creation was complete. Nothing more needed to be done. God set the seventh day apart as holy and gave it a name: Shabbat. Seven transcends the natural (6) and moves into the supernatural (7).
It is important to understand God’s way of thinking. Only by understanding God’s way of thinking does His Word become Truth in our hearts through faith. God had the Children of Israel began their new day at 6PM. The rest of the world begins their new day at 6AM. Why is this? Think about God’s will when He created man at the “end” of the 6th day of creation. God’s will was for man to step right into the 7th day of creation, the day of “rest,” and live there for all eternity. When man fell, we moved back into the sixth day or into work.
By starting a day at “rest,” we are to be still and hear from God. This rest represents the fellowship God had with Adam and Eve in the Garden. During this time of “rest,” God imparts counsel, guidance, discernment, revelation, etc., to the Believer. It is during this “rest” that God intended for Proverbs 16:3 to take place.
Proverbs 16:3
Commit thy works unto The LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
God prepares us during the “rest” or the “fellowship” for the next step in the relationship God had with Adam and Eve in the Garden: assignment. God provides clear understanding, knowledge, wisdom, and instruction to us for the assignment that starts at 6AM. God also provides the next step in the relationship to match the assignment He gives to us: provision. God will never give us an assignment without also giving us the provision. The provision may not be there the minute you receive the assignment, but God will deliver the provision in His way. God is responsible for the “how” of the assignment and the “how” of the provision, and not us. This is what El Shaddai, The All Sufficient One, does. Else He cannot call Himself, El Shaddai. And God is true to His many names and to His Word, which is above all His name (Psalm 138:2). God is to be our EVERYTHING.
We are to begin every day and every week by RESTING in God. First, we rest in the finished work of God, then we go to work our assignment (perform good deeds and bless others). This has been God’s pattern from the very beginning. We are to rest, then work on the assignment. Any other pattern proclaims mankind’s desire to rest in the work of his own hands and is of the kingdom of darkness. The world sees it just the opposite of God. It works and then rests whereas God has us rest, then work.
Number Eight – Shemoni [f.], shemonah [m.] Literally to “make fat.” Eight represents “new beginnings.” We are not just complete (like seven), but we are also satiated (satisfied fully or to excess). Becoming “fat” is having more than enough. We go from full to overflowing. We move from the natural to the supernatural. The number eight represents transcending natural time and space to the supernatural realm. It is only supernaturally that we receive the “double portion” through the Spiritual, or supernatural, realm.
We need to think of Jesus as the Lord of the Sabbath (7th day, 7th year) and the Lord of the Jubilee (8th day, 8th year). The difference in Jesus is the Spiritual Sabbath and the Spiritual Jubilee are now one and eternal. The day, the minute, we accepted Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, we immediately received both the benefits of the Sabbath and the Jubilee in One. We don’t have to wait from one week to the next, from the seventh year to the next seventh year cycle, or from the fiftieth year to the next cycle of fifty years, to receive ALL the benefits of the Sabbath and Jubilee. We have ALL the benefits AT ONCE, right now! We are complete and new in Christ as The Scriptures tell us.
II Corinthians 5:17-18
17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
18 And all things are of God, Who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ, and hath given to us the ministry of reconciliation;
As a new creation in Christ Jesus, the Lord of the Sabbath and the Jubilee, we and everything about us, around us, in us, and for us is NEW. And it is all from God Who can only give good and perfect gifts (James 1:17). Love, Who is God, does this because it is all that Love can do. Love cannot do anything else, or It is not Love. What an amazing Father God and King Jesus we have that Loves us. And Their Love is beyond human comprehension. Only in the Spirit can we learn of the agape Love that is God.
Blessings in Christ Jesus,
Larry