Why Should/Shouldn’t My Church Embrace Change? Part XXXXIII
“Three times in a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God in the place which He chooses…”
God is unique in that he treats us individually but sees us corporately as a Body in Christ. God reveals himself through all of his believers experiencing the truth of all three of these festivals as Israel and the Church has done, but that truth can also be expressed individually. For example, the way to salvations is universal: through Jesus. To experience “justification by faith” individually, each person must make the choice for themselves to accept Jesus as their Savior and Lord. The acceptance of Him is an universal principle, but each of our journeys and each of our stories is uniquely different. That is why “If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:9) Your confession is important, for it is your unique experience with Jesus for the first time and being birthed into his kingdom.
The same principle holds true for Pentecost. The principle of Pentecost, the Logos written Word becoming a Rhema living Word in one’s personal life by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit, is an universal principle, but again one’s journey, one’s story, on how they got there is uniquely different.
Also, one’s Feast of Booth’s experience is uniquely personal. When a person is in the process of dyeing a natural death, their whole life can flash before them. By reliving their life, they can deal with situations by forgiving people, accepting life’s events no matter how difficult, or releasing events and people. It is as if “life’s judgments” are presented to them as a last ditch effort to release oneself from this world, literally, so they can “rest in peace” if they know Jesus. I have seen people who do not know Jesus in anguish during this time as if being prepared for the anguish in the eternal afterlife apart from God. I’ve seen people set free, relieved, relax, and “enter into peace” because they know the Prince of Peace. That is what the Feast of Booths is all about, each person preparing to leave their booth, their physical body here on earth for an eternal spiritual body in the afterlife.