Revival & the Jewish Fall Feasts

I love autumn in Virginia. I love the cool temps, the clear skies and the colorful leaves that blanket our gorgeous Blue Ridge Mountains. As the days shorten and the leaves fall, it reminds me of the "old" passing away.

This time of year also marks the celebration of the three Jewish fall feasts:

• Rosh Hashanah (New Year) or Yom Teruah (Day of the Sounding of the Trumpet), 
• Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) and 
• Sukkot (Feast of Booths). 

The fall feasts usher in the Jewish new year and are a reminder of the need to have sins forgiven. This gives a fresh start to the year because there is a sense of renewal and celebration as they remember God's faithfulness to them as a nation. The Lord ordered those feasts to help position them to walk faithfully with Him to receive His blessing. 

Evangelical Christians sometimes observe a similar time of renewal and celebration. We call it revival, and like the Jewish fall feasts, it should be preceded by a very important event - repentance.

Repentance, the changing of our minds from our way to God's, prepares us to come before Him. David understood this as he penned Psalm 24. "Who may ascend the hill of the Lord? Who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart... He will receive blessing from the Lord." Before revival and renewal can take place in our lives, we need to be clean. God will reveal our sins and weaknesses so we can understand how we got to this place, and when our thinking is in line with His, He will begin His renewing work and show us how to proceed.  

Too many times I just want God to bless my mess. My calendar is full of good things and I want God to work within those to help me further His kingdom. And that's perfectly fine and right when He leads me in those good things, but if I want true revival and renewal, I need to be willing to lay all of those things at His feet and let Him sort through it.

I want to look at these four aspects of my life:

• Spiritual - the way I relate to God
• Physical - the way I care for my body
• Mental-Emotional - the things I think about
• Relational - the way I interact with others

I can put on a good "game face" and look like I have my act together and let me tell you, I am GOOD at it. But God sees behind the game face and knows what's strong and what's weak and what's duct-taped together with good intentions. What is amazing is that He loves for me to dump it all out before Him! Things like...

• I used to be diligent about memorizing scripture, but I'm slacking now.
• Cooler temps = warm food, and this time of year I have a weakness for anything that begins with "apple"!
• I used to read for pleasure. I can't remember the last "fun" book I read.
• Sometimes people get on my nerves. Sorry, but they do. There are times I'd rather do ANYTHING than go out, even clean my house!

Those are a few of the G-rated, superficial elements of my mess. Only He knows what lurks beneath the surface and I want Him to show me where my issues run deep. If I don't deal with those deep roots, they will surely send up more shoots and I'll have to keep dealing with the same kinds of things over and over!

So I will sit at His feet and pour out my heart. (This is a good time to brainstorm and keep a journal!) Then I will pray and ask Him to convict me of the sinful behavior I need to stop. And His Spirit will also reveal the need to cut out some good activity that's keeping me from something better. I'll prayerfully make those changes until I have the peace that I'm where He wants me to be. I won't get legalistic nor will I get lax, and I won't try to tackle every single issue I have and kill myself attempting to be perfect! But I WILL trust Him to give me the grace I need to work on the things that need to change right now.

Little by little He will transform my mess into something that is focused, Christ-like and God-centered. It won't look like what it did, but it's all good because the "old" needs to pass away so the "new" can come.

But it all starts with clean hands and pure hearts...