How Can I Get Closer To God ??
Welcome to the Banqueting Table – to find out more: click here
To give you an idea about the Australia Kneels 42 Days leading up to the Lord’s Crucifixion & Resurrection weekend: click here:
Chef’s Menu For Today
Dr Hilary Moroney – Canberra House of Prayer
As we consider this weekend the impact of the Resurrection and the Meaning of First Fruits…
Let’s listen now how the Lord brings us comfort and encourages us to rise above and overcome the pain of rejection through His Resurrection Power…
The Warfare Storm is Being Disarmed
Prophetic word by Nate Johnston
I woke up yesterday hearing the Lord say “I am DIS-ARMING the STORM!”
“And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross” Colossians 2:15
Then I heard the Lord say;
“Tell them that it is now time to enter into the era called TRIUMPH, for I have marked this next season not with relentless losses but with VICTORY”
“For in the last season the enemy warred at the church to see if she would fight or run, rise or hide, so he could STOP THEM using the keys I have given them”
“But right now I am shaking the church out of the tomb of powerlessness and defeat and giving her back her keys!”
“For I have seen my people defeated and feeling like they could never overpower or shift the warfare storm at thier doorstep”
“I have seen them so lost in the daily swirl of chatter, witchcraft, and battling low level demons that they haven’t been able to see beyond it”
“Have you forgotten that you are the head and not the tail? Above only and not beneath?”
“Have you become so accustomed to the view from under the table that you have forgotten that you were given a seat at it?”
When did the taunts of Goliath make you lose your victory?
“For I have seen your hope dashed in the battle as you have felt like your prayers have fallen and were unheard”
“You have felt so beat up that you began to doubt my power and my ability to shift the tide against you”
“But in this hour I am DISARMING every assignment against at your mind, your family, finances, and destiny and setting the record straight”
“But even better, I am going to do it THROUGH YOU! So get ready as I begin to shake the chains loose and RESTORE YOUR FIGHT!”
To read the rest of the word CLICK HERE
Our Worship Song for this Passover weekend:
Notice how God’s Love Becomes our Cornerstone
My hope is built on nothing less (Cornerstone)
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus name
My hope is built on nothing less
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus name
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
When darkness seems to hide His face
I rest on His unchanging grace
In every high and stormy gale
My anchor holds within the veil
My anchor holds within the veil
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
He is Lord, Lord of all
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all, yeah
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
When He shall come with trumpet sound
Oh may I then in Him be found
Dressed in His righteousness alone
Faultless stand before the throne
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
Christ alone, Cornerstone
Weak made strong in the Saviour’s love
Through the storm, He is Lord
Lord of all
Ps Jeff Daly – National Day of Repentance
JESUS SAID “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE!”
John 11: 17-27 Jesus says whoever believes in Him shall never die! Therefore come to Him; enter His Kingdom through simple repentance, Matthew 4:17, receive His Holy Spirit, the first fruit of which is LOVE (Galatians 5:22).
That LOVE will replace any sadness, any rejection found in this world! God bless each one of you this Holy Week, this time of His blood being shed and His death and resurrection for each of us. We claim Who He Is !
More information at www.globalrepent.com and the Canberra House of Prayer for All Nations.
Ps Jeff Daly – National Day of Repentance
Jesus/Yeshua by His Blood, Became the First Fruits of Eternal Life !
Choose Him today. This fulfills the command of Almighty God to all Israelites in Exodus to bring to the House of the Lord their first fruits to God (Exodus 23:19). His shed innocent Blood covers the mercy seat permanently as did earlier priests in the temple on that one holy day each year.
Now the Holy Spirit, writing to the Corinthians and to you and me today says: ” But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep [died], For since by man came death, by Man [Christ Jesus] also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ ALL shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the first fruits, afterwards those who are Christ’s at His coming [His second coming]. ” 1 Corinthians 15: 20-23.
Thus today is the day to repent (Matthew 4:17) and come, Jew and gentile, into His Kingdom now and for eternity before His soon return!
Understanding the Spring Feasts and Why They Point to What’s Ahead
By: Karen Engle, ICEJ USA Managing Editor
“Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep.” —1 Corinthians 15:20
The school I attended from second to eighth grade included Bible as part of the curriculum, and I fondly remember pulling out my small paperback Bible from my desk and reading through several pages daily with my teacher. One year as Easter approached, she planned a simple Passover Seder after we read about Jesus’ death and resurrection. Each student received a little dixie plate with a green herb, a slice of radish, and a cracker. As we tasted each item, she told us they would help us remember Israel’s exodus from Egypt.
I never truly understood why until I was in my 30s when God nudged me to learn more about Passover and all the feasts. And the more I dug into Scripture and read about each, the more God revealed their significance—and my Bible turned from black and white to technicolor.
Though there are seven Feasts (four in the spring and three in the fall), the spring Feasts—Passover/Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, and Pentecost—are unique. Through them, thousands of years before Jesus walked this earth, God revealed the significance of His Son’s death, resurrection, ascension to heaven, and promised gift of the Holy Spirit in His plan of redemption.
God’s Spring Feasts
The spring Feasts, or mo’edim (“appointments”), were meant to point the children of Israel to their messiah and illustrate the truth of God’s plan of redemption and its fulfillment through this promised savior. They were set-apart, divine rehearsals of the steps the children of Israel needed to take to be reconciled to their heavenly Father. Rather than mere holidays to be celebrated, like we might celebrate Valentine’s Day or the Fourth of July today, the Lord’s Feasts reveal a pattern of His plan of redemption for all mankind from creation to eternity—and can teach us truths about what’s to come.
Passover and Unleavened Bread
The first feasts on God’s calendar are Passover and Unleavened Bread, and in them, God has revealed profound realities of His plan of redemption.
The story of the Exodus—specifically Exodus 12—provides details about this feast. After almost 400 years of slavery in Egypt, God told Israel to take a perfect lamb into their homes. They were to care for the lamb for five days, slaughter it at twilight, and put its blood on the lintels of their doors. Passover, or Pesach in Hebrew, means “to skip over,” and indeed, that is what happened. The blood was a “sign” to God: when He saw the blood, the angel of death passed over the house, and the people inside were protected. That same night, God struck all firstborn males in homes without the lamb’s blood on the doorposts, bringing judgment on the gods of Egypt. As a result, Pharoah relented and allowed the children of Israel to leave.
However, the act of sacrificing the lamb and putting its blood on the doorposts was only a “shadow” of a profound reality to come: Jesus’ death on the cross. Just as Israel sacrificed a perfect lamb—its blood over the doors protecting those inside from physical death—so, too, the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, protects or “saves” those who trust in Him from eternal, spiritual death.
Unleavened Bread
The seven days of unleavened bread also point to Jesus and the significance of His death and resurrection for those who believe. God told the children of Israel to eat the lamb they had slain that same night before leaving Egypt, along with bitter herbs and bread without leaven. Later, when Israel was in the desert, God told them that for seven days after Passover, they were to continue to abstain from bread with leaven:
On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the Feast of Unleavened Bread to the Lord; seven days you must eat unleavened bread. (Leviticus 23:5–6)
“Leaven,” or yeast, causes dough to rise, and in the Mosaic law, represents sin or corruption. Paul alluded to this in his letter to the Corinthians. He pointed believers to the Feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread, saying, “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” and called them to “purge out the old leaven, that you may be a new lump, since you truly are unleavened. For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us” (1 Corinthians 5:6–7; see also Galatians 5:9). Like the tiniest speck of yeast in a batch of dough, sin can “puff up” or poison a whole person—physically and spiritually.
Israel’s release from Egypt is a beautiful depiction of our own deliverance from sin and freedom from bondage won by the blood of the Lamb of God. Jesus’ death on the cross removes our sin as far from us as the East is from the West. We are set free and made new—without sin, like an unleavened lump of dough.
Firstfruits
The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a full week long, and therefore, always includes a weekly Sabbath. The day after the Sabbath, the priest took barley sheaves, the firstfruits of the spring harvest, and waved them before the Lord, acknowledging God’s provision and sovereignty over the earth. Like Passover and Unleavened Bread, this incredible feast, too often overlooked, resounds with profound significance for Christians.
Paul wrote that just as Christ was raised to life, the “firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Corinthians 15:20), so too, in Christ, will we be made alive. There is an order of things: “each in turn: Christ, the firstfruits; then, when he comes, those who belong to him” (v. 23 NIV). As Jesus was resurrected to life, those who trust Him will also be resurrected.
In these verses, Paul was alluding to the Feast of Firstfruits, and the lesson was clear: if God was faithful to bring about an early barley harvest, He would be faithful to provide the rest of it. But that was just the “shadow.” The reality (fulfillment) of Firstfruits is Jesus: His resurrection life was an “acceptable offering” to the Lord on the same day the priests presented Israel’s barley firstfruits to God. And just as those first sheaves of barley guaranteed the fullness of the harvest, so, too, Jesus’ resurrection guarantees a greater “harvest” of believers.
Pentecost
Starting the same day God required Israel to bring the sheaf of barley as an offering, Israel was to count off 50 days, called “counting the omer.” (An omer is an ancient measurement of grain.) On day 50, they were to present before Him another firstfruits offering, this time of the latter firstfruits (wheat). In Hebrew, this Feast is called Shavuot, meaning “weeks,” and in Greek, Pentecost, meaning “50.”
Pentecost was a time of thanksgiving and celebration for God’s faithfulness in providing the spring harvest, and it solidified hope for an abundant fall harvest. Today the Jewish community connects this Feast to the day God descended Mount Sinai in fire and made a covenant with His people, giving them His instruction for living as a set-apart people. Traditionally, Ezekiel 1 is read in Jewish synagogues on Shavuot, which describes Ezekiel’s dramatic vision of God’s glory in a whirlwind and a great cloud, the brightness of which was “like the color of amber” (v. 4).
On Pentecost, God’s very presence descended Mount Sinai on His people. But again, that was only the shadow of this feast! Luke tells us in Acts 2—exactly 50 days after Jesus had ascended to heaven, as all the believers were together—God’s presence once again descended on His people. This time, however, it was as “tongues of fire,” and each person was filled with God’s Spirit. On that day, what the first-century Jewish believers understood in the physical realm—God’s giving of His Word, His instruction—was made manifest in the spiritual realm. Jesus, God’s spoken Word, now dwelt within His people.
This firstfruits “offering” has become the most famous: the early fruits have come in, and the implicit promise is that the latter “fall” harvest will one day come in too: “The hour to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is fully ripe” (Revelation 14:15 ESV).
Conclusion
The Feasts are like a skeletal structure upon which God’s story of redemption and the truths of the Bible hang. In Passover and Unleavened Bread, we see Jesus, the perfect, sinless Lamb of God who provides forgiveness from sin through His once-for-all death on the cross. In Firstfruits, Jesus is the acceptable offering for sin. And those who believe in Jesus have His Spirit dwelling in them, the fulfillment of Pentecost: their broken relationship with the Father is reconciled.
Because Jesus perfectly fulfilled the spring Feasts, painting a picture of the work of Christ at His first advent—“Act 1” of His story of redemption—we can confidently trust and look forward with excitement to the three unfulfilled fall feasts, knowing He will complete His story and fulfill them too.
Below is additional information that helps bring a deeper understanding of the Feasts.
Agricultural Cycles in Israel and the Feasts
For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive oil and honey; a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing. (Deuteronomy 8:7–9)
The entire Feast system was closely linked to the agricultural cycle in ancient Israel. In the spring, the most important crops were barley and wheat, both planted in the fall and producing ancient Israel’s main food staple. Legumes and various herbs were also harvested in spring.
Barley was the first to mature (in our March/April), followed by the wheat harvest (May/June). The children of Israel could not eat the barley until the firstfruits of grain had been offered on the “day after the Sabbath” during the Festival of Unleavened Bread (Leviticus 23:9–14)—the Feast of Firstfruits. The Feast of Pentecost (also called the Feast of Harvest in Exodus 23:16) occurred 50 days later at the end of the barley harvest and the beginning of the wheat harvest (Leviticus 23:16–17). Israel’s fruit harvest, including grapes, olives, dates, figs, and pomegranates, ripened and were ready June through September. Olives were picked beginning in September through November.
Israel’s Dependence upon Rain
Unlike Egypt, which was irrigated by the freshwater Nile River, much of Israel was dry and arid, making Israel’s harvests entirely dependent on rainfall. Moses affirmed this, saying the promised land “drinks water from the rain of heaven,” (Deuteronomy 11:11). Without rain, there would be no harvest, and the children of Israel would not survive.
Interestingly, rain in the Bible is symbolic of the spiritual refreshment, renewal, and blessing God provides: “For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants” (Isaiah 44:3). Rain is often used as a metaphor for God’s Word and its role in nourishing and sustaining our spiritual life:
For as the rain comes down, and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall My word be that goes forth from My mouth; it shall not return to Me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10–11)
Just as Israel needed rain to produce a harvest, the world needs Jesus, the Bread of Life, Living Word, and Living Water, to produce His harvest of believers. He sustains and nourishes those who trust in Him and brings growth and fruitfulness, accomplishing His purpose in our lives.
