Happy New Year!

eDevotion

Encouragement for your daily walk with God

Happy New Year may sound strange for the title of a devotion in September, but that’s my greeting to you today. Yes, I know it’s September, but in just a few days (September 14-15, 2015), the Jewish New Year begins. We know it as Rosh Ha Shannah, Yom Teruah, or the Feast of Trumpets. At the end of summer, the Hebrews were commanded to blow the shofar — a ram’s horn (trumpet) — all day long. It was to sound an alarm. It served to mark the end of the summer harvest and to announce that the Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, is near. It’s time to stand before God.

For Christ followers, the Feast of Trumpets is amazingly prophetic. We are living in the time of harvest, the interval in which God is “harvesting” souls for the Kingdom. According to Scripture, the sound of the shofar is the next major event, just before that great, and notable Day of the Lord. 

There is a message to each of us within the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s a wake up call of sorts: The harvest will soon be over, make yourself ready to stand before God. How, you ask? Paul told the Corinthians what to do, and it is good advice for us as well: “Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward complete holiness because we fear God” 2 Corinthians 7:1.

The “summer harvest” is nearing completion, dear friend. The Day of the Lord is near. Rosh Ha Shannah — Happy New Year!

Blow ye the trumpet (shofar in Hebrew) in Zion, and sound an alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the LORD is coming, for it is near at hand. Joel 2:1