I have to admit I am somewhat of an end times junkie.  This all started years ago when my children were little and I wanted to add to the holiday fun for the family. I listened to Focus on the Family and they had recommended a book that I can’t remember the name of, but it had great ideas to add to each holiday to make it Christ relevant and fun.  This was exactly what I was looking for.  In this book was a section on a “christian passover”  After reading about it and diving in full force ( those who know me understand I have two speeds, fast and full-blown) I hosted my family and in brother and sister-in-law and 6 small toddlers and babies to a 4 hour nightmare of  full on kosher “Christian Passover” meal and Seder.  Let’s just say it was a disaster, but it whet my appetite for bible study and I dove in head first and I haven’t had my nose out of those books ever since.  I teach a lot about  the 7 feasts of the Lord and the end time significance that they imply.  After seeing Christ fulfill the first three feasts to the day and the Holy Spirit fulfill the fourth to the day I was hooked.  I knew the Lord was teaching us something important if we only had eyes to see and ears to hear.

This short article is not about all the study on the feasts, that is reserved for another time, it is not about the wedding feast and wedding preparation either, again for another article; this is about missing what God is doing.  Kind of like missing the trees for the forest, or is it missing the forest for the trees?  I never remember, but either works fine for me.

You see we tend to have preconceived notions about how and when Christ will return.  There are those who  simply quote “no man knows the day or hour except the Father” so they ignore it all and put their head in the sand, not realizing the play on words Jesus was using.  Then there are those who have charts and 7 years and 3 and 1/2 years and peace treaties they try to tie it up with a bow and take all christians out of the picture up to a grand wedding supper with the Lamb of God all the while the bride is still on earth….but you see there is one body, ONE BODY.  Ephesians 4 sums in up nicely.  We ( non jews, Hebrews ,GENTILES) were once far away and separated and excluded, utterly estranged and outlawed from the rights of Israel as a nation–strangers with NO share in the sacred compacts of the Messianic promise.  We had no hope, being in the world but without God.   But now, Christ Jesus has brought us near by His blood, He is our peace our bond and unity.  He has made us both Jew and Gentile ONE BODY and abolished the dividing wall between us.  By abolishing HIs own crucified flesh the enmity caused by the Law with  its decrees and ordinances, which He annulled; that He from the TWO might create in Himself ONE new man–one new quality of humanity out of the TWO, so making peace.

When I read these words in Ephesians I am more convinced than ever that we, the gentiles are grafted into the olive tree ( Israel) and we now follow them, and their God is now ours and we are one with them.  Ruth displayed this perfectly when she left her land and became a Jewess and followed what Naomi told her to do.  But that is not what I read  or hear about.   All I ever read about now is how the body is secretly removed, without the dead in Christ rising first, and then God deals with Israel as a separate entity.  I think we are looking at this all wrong.  We are looking in the wrong places and trying to make the end of time fit our model of what we want and what we think we should get.  The Pharisees and Sadducees did the same thing.  They fit the coming of the Messiah to conveniently fit the mold of Christ coming in the power of the throne of David and ruling over all the world and putting and end to their enemies, presently Rome.  The problem was they were looking at what they saw in themselves according to the word of God and not what it said about all the people. they forgot God told Abraham they would be a light to the gentiles.  God already planned to make them one body   Re-Read Ephesians 2 again, slowly and in as many versions as you like.  Christ unites us into one body–one body marries the lamb, one body is the bride, one body to love and enjoy Him forever.  We become the people of God through Christ, just as they become fulfilled through all the law and prophets when they believe and trust the Christ Jesus is their messiah.  No one comes to the Father without the Son.  We both are joined in His death and His resurrection.

So when I see the fall feasts i Look for Christ and the implications of the great deception the God is sending;  and the falling away of the love of the body and a lawless man arising; I am on the lookout.  Satan doesn’t know when either, so he must always have a man of flesh prepared in every era of time, ready to fulfill the scriptures.  Don’t look for your ticket out of here, look to those who are around you and need to know.  What do they need to know?  That you believe, that you believe in this Christ, enough to stake your life on it, and the lives of your children and families.  Tell them what He has done for you.  Ruth did, she followed Naomi and did what she was called to do and Naomi’s God became hers, She ,  the  moabite, cast out of the family of israel for 10 generations because of her people could not be in the congregation of the Lord now became the 10th generation, the one to break the curse and then to become the great grandmother of David. Tell them so they will not be deceived, or ambivalent or a scoffer,  Or do you think that Christian persecution will not happen here?

I don’t have the answers, I am just a fellow disciple on the road following Christ like you, but I choose to look to HIm and wonder–not at a set plan that men have said must happen before Christ returns based on tradition and man centered ideas.  , The Jews during the time of Jesus missed it and Jesus wept over them.  This tribulation will be even worse, if possible the Word of God says, so increase your diet of scriptures, take them to heart. teach them, learn them, and then mentor others.   We all have a piece to play in this puzzle–being a part of the body, one body, one Israel, is the most amazing thing I could have read tonight.  Iam reconciled to His plan through a people He chose from the beginning knowing His Son would bring peace to this world, but only through a magnificent death and resurrection.   I for one am  praying for those under extreme persecution from ISIS and pray that godly teachers will hear from God and tell us  to be ready,to not be deceived and arm ourselves with the full armor of God, for we are in battle…the battle for souls… God Bless and get your nose in that bible as soon as your eyelids open.