Rabbi and Rebbitzen Corner April 2023
By Eric Carlson in 04_2023-2 on April 1, 2023
Shalom Mishpocha!
The New Year is upon us (5783)! We look forward to restarting both the Biblical Calendar and the Annual Moedim (Feast Day) Cycle! The redemption of Israel from slavery in Egypt occurred this month, Tuesday, April 4th, 2023 at sunset (14th of Nisan). The world was delivered from the slavery of Sin in the same month through the Messiah who was born on the 1st of Nisan. Happy Birthday Yeshua!!! Yeshua was also crucified on the 14th of Nisan during Pesach!
The Moedim are a heavenly ordered Cycle of Time, a never-ending repetitive circle that can be repetitive but not exactly identical! Jewish thought regards time not in a linear, flat pattern but a spiral type of “helix,” a limitless forward, upward progression driven by a divine cyclic pattern that repeats certain divine patterns in weeks, months, and years of life such as the Moedim or Feast Days beginning with the weekly Shabbat through the annual Feast Days.
We always look forward to the Feast Days with anticipation and expectation! They are a time of the supernatural, a time of miracles! April in the physical realm is a time of renewal, Spring is in full swing, recharging and restoring our hope. April is the National Month of Hope!
Hope isn’t wishing, hope is an indication of certainty. Hope in Scripture means “a strong and confident expectation.” We must strive to achieve this hope! Hope is not an escape from reality or from whatever problems we are facing. Hope isn’t wishing God will intercede on your behalf, it’s the expectation, the full knowledge that He will. If your hope is based on Gods covenant promises, it will have results.
Romans 5:1-5. So, since we have come to be considered righteous by God because of our trust, let us continue to have shalom with God through our Lord, Yeshua the Messiah. 2 Also through him and on the ground of our trust, we have gained access to this grace in which we stand; so let us boast about the hope of experiencing God’s glory. 3 But not only that, let us also boast in our troubles; because we know that trouble produces endurance, 4 endurance produces character, and character produces hope; 5 and this hope does not let us down, because God’s love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh who has been given to us.
As Messianic Believers, hope when understood and walked out in God’s truth, results in a holy obsession with an eternal hope not based upon fear, timidity, or weakness! True hope in and through Yeshua transforms your life on a whole new dimension, the 5th dimension of the heavenly spirit realm. It gives one the power to live life courageously, a life of power, of love, and of a sound mind (II Timothy 1:7.) If we press in, if we are zealous in seeking Adonai through Yeshua hope will turn to trust, hope turns desires into reality! Hope is the first step in receiving from God.
Hebrews 11:1. Trusting is being confident of what we hope for, convinced about things we do not see.
Hope knows you will have it someday. Trust knows that you have it now. Hope is the possibility; trust is the surety. Trust transforms hopes into realities. Hope is the raw material from which trust builds the house. Our Hopes shall be realized:
Hebrews 6:11. However, we want each one of you to keep showing the same diligence right up to the end, when your hope will be realized;
Transforming Gods vision and goal for your life into reality is the purpose of hope and Trust. The key to hope is to trust God’s timing. Sometimes God answers prayers and fulfills our hopes quickly. Though, at times for reasons known only to Him, He allows us to wait. It’s difficult to praise, to give thanksgiving, to rejoice while waiting for hope to be fulfilled! Entering and staying before His presence enables Adonai to perfect those imperfections that are unknown, unseen to us. This kind of hope, refined in the crucible of waiting and occasionally suffering purifies:
I John 3:3. And everyone who has this hope in him continues purifying himself, since God is pure
Yeshua is our hope! Don’t give up hope, He is our kingdom foundation, our stability:
Hebrews 6:19. We have this hope as a sure and safe anchor for ourselves, a hope that goes right on through to what is inside the parokhet.
Hope sees the invisible, feels the intangible, and achieves the impossible! HOPE is an acronym that spells: “Hold–On–Pain–Ends”! As we enter this new year let us be beacons of hope, to model it, to spread it, and to be a source of hope to a world filled with hopelessness! Those who place their hope in the Lord will not grow weary:
Isaiah 40:31. but those who hope in ADONAI will renew their strength, they will soar aloft as with eagles’ wings; when they are running they won’t grow weary, when they are walking they won’t get tired.
May you have a blessed and prosperous New Year in Yeshua!
Blessings and Shalom,
Rabbi and Rebbitzen Carlson
Congregation Zion’s Sake