New Growth Studies
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I expect to add a new item occasionally. If you send me an email I will include you in an announcement email after I post a new item. Please send your email to brettact2@gmail.com.
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By new growth I’m referring to mainly adding items that might require more in-depth exposure. An example would be integrating the Biblical Holy Days with the Ten Commandments. The Holy Days (Prophetic) are 7 items, and the Commandments (Law) are 10 items. If you set them up as a grid you have 70 sets of interactive data to explore. And we tend to live about 70 years of age. It looks like our whole life if under the influence of the Law and the Prophets, AKA the Bible.
New Growth 1
I’m sharing this teaching about the Biblical Holy Days. This is how the Spirit has taught me a developmental pattern in spiritual growth that enables increased spiritual fruit and application of the Spirit’s gifts.
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It starts with First Fruits; a practice God gave Israel to follow during Passover. A few days before Passover I ask the Father what my first fruit is this year. It's usually a 1-word answer for me, like joy, peace, patience.
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The next few days I gather recent moments of that answer occurring in my life. I meditate on them, and bring them into worship on First Fruits morning, to wave them before Him in celebration, and commit to using this firstfruit in my 7 weeks of spiritual harvest.
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My reasoning is that if I was a farmer in Biblical Israel, I would follow this pattern in the natural, as I prepare for my journey to Jerusalem, to observe Passover. I would need to prepare before leaving on this journey.
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Then the next 7 weeks (which is the period of Pentecost) I exercise the first fruit characteristic to launch the pattern I am led to follow for that year (Passover month starts the Biblical year).
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I see Pentecost as a time to review the Gospels and gather Bread of Life grains from Jesus’ ministry. I also use other lists. There are several development lists in Scripture that I've used for this, 1 week on each item. The Creation week, the 7 pillars of wisdom (2 Peter 1), the 7 foundational doctrines (Hebrews 6), which are all designed as growth patterns.
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In Israel this 7-weeks grain harvest starts with the barley harvest, which was the poor man's grain; and ends with the wheat harvest, the rich man's grain. Likewise we are journeying from our poverty in this development to our richness in these areas, as we harvest the nature of Christ's views, teachings, practices and relational approach. We really need to enter Christ’s richness.
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Then on Pentecost we offer ourselves as 2 loaves of bread, ready to go out and use the gifts of the Spirit to produce the Fruit of the Spirit in peoples’ lives. In Israel the remainder of the summer has numerous fruit harvest seasons. This is the remainder of the Holy Day season, culminating in Tabernacles, the great end-of-the-harvest ingathering party at Christ's return.
New Growth 2
The Greatest Sin by Dennis Prager
LA Times Sunday article in Aug 2005
Religious people depict God as a simpleton who is less intelligent than creation, proclaiming all sin is equal in His eyes. It's self-evident murder is worse than stealing a stapler. The worst sin is committing evil in God's name: only 1 of the 10 Commandments say God won't forgive it's violation – 'Do not carry God's name in vain' (the literal Hebrew).
The greatest sin is one who carries God's name (by how he talks and acts), but acts contrary to God's nature, His will: immoral acts, as further defined by the balance of the Ten Commandments. This has to be the idea, because the idea that God can forgive murder but not the vocal misuse of His name is morally untenable.
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On a societal level good can't be maintained as a criteria and growing force unless people believe the Creator has a moral will, makes moral demands, and morally judges. Without a God-based moral code 'morality' becomes a euphemism for personal preferences, with humanity sinking into anarchy.
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If there is moral anarchy when God is removed from morality, imagine what ensues when God is identified with evil. Every person who believes in God and every God-based religion is hurt by the epidemic of Muslims murdering in God's name. Evil religion people are far more destructive to the cause of religion than any atheist; increase the private and public levels of contempt for God.
New Growth 3
The Sabbath embodies Judaism’s model of sacred time - the restoration of that perfect moment of repose that God sanctified when He created Eden. God’s act of sanctification of the seventh day defines for Judaism the meaning of sacred time.
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Eden then stands for not only a location but an occasion, a condition that matches a moment. That is the account that matters in the Ten Commandments: “Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy ... for in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it” (Exodos 20:8, 11).
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To keep the Sabbath day holy means replicating the condition of Eden: repose in God’s image, after God’s likeness, on the seventh day of Creation - the completeness factor. Maybe we should also approach our work week with an agenda, creating long-term substance weekly to be more satisfied on Sabbath.
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Shabbat, the Sabbath Day, was given on the seventh day of Creation and was the final act of Creation. God established Shabbat, He created the Sabbath Day, where He reflected on His work and celebrated. It was finished! On the seventh day He created “rest” from the work of creating and He created a celebration of all that He had created.
The only way to truly observe the Shabbat is to fulfill our purpose in maintaining His Creation. Genesis 1:26-28. We too can reflect on His Creation that we take part in maintaining and preserving.
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26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”
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27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Like God, we spend six days a week properly stewarding His Creation, and on the seventh day we celebrate His Creation. We are honoring the creation we are stewarding, establishing its worth and the value of our mission. This model continues week after week, constantly reminding us to thank Him for His provision and preparing our hearts for our current responsibilities to develop Rest in the world, and eternal Shabbat.