Messianic Jewish Holidays and Celebrations

December 29, 2019

The word Chanukah means “dedication,” and the miracles the holiday celebrates center on the rededication of the Temple. The victory God won for the Maccabees brought a fresh start for Jewish worship. At last, they had their Temple back, and they could honor God as He had called them. As Believers, whose bodies are called temples of God (1 Corinthians 6:19–20), we have the opportunity of renewed dedication every day. Each new dawn offers us the potential for starting over, drawing closer to Go...

December 28, 2019

As we look at Chanukah and its miracle of light, we can’t forget the remarkable fact that God uses us to shine His light to the world. He places His Spirit inside each one who puts their faith in Jesus as the Messiah. And His light in us reveals Him to those around us. When we love as the Bible commands us and serve selflessly as Jesus did, we display God’s goodness and point a hurting world to Him. New Covenant Scriptures call us to live by the power of God’s Spirit in us rather than from ou...

December 27, 2019

God’s instructions for building the Temple had included meticulous detail and beauty. The Temple was His holy dwelling place; it had to be pure. Its desecration at the hands of Antiochus’ regime was unbearable for God’s people. When they regained the Temple, they wanted to cleanse it and rededicate it as soon as possible. God performed the miracle of the oil, enabling the light to burn as they went about this most holy task. God works miracles in our hearts through the gift of new life and th...

December 26, 2019

Chanukah is about a miracle of light. One of the ways the Bible uses the word light is to represent knowledge. It’s a metaphor that is still used today: we are “enlightened” when we have knowledge and understanding but we’re “in the dark” when we don’t. In the Psalms, David refers to God’s Word as a lamp to light his way. A dark path conceals all kinds of dangers, but enter light, and we have information to guide our steps. With light, obstacles become visible and predators exposed. We see wh...

December 25, 2019

None of us deserves the salvation God grants to those who believe in Jesus, and we can’t earn it. We are marred by sins of long ago, let alone today, and we simply don’t measure up. Salvation is a pure gift of mercy and love offered by our holy God through Messiah Yeshua (Jesus). “We all like sheep have gone astray. Each of us has turned to his own way,” Isaiah 53:6 tells us. “So Adonai has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” That God would attribute our sin to Jesus and, in turn, count Yesh...

December 24, 2019

The Maccabees faced daunting odds. It would take a miracle, but something had to be done to protect the Jewish people and regain the Temple. The Seleucid army had the backing of Antiochus, but God was on the Maccabees’ side. The small group of revolutionaries fought against the soldiers and, by God’s grace and power, took back the Temple. God gave them victory. God has given us a victory today that we could not attain without Him. Jesus, through His death and resurrection, won the victory ove...

December 23, 2019

Through another miracle, the birth of Jesus, God sent His Messiah to live among us as Emmanuel, “God with us.” During His ministry, Yeshua (Jesus) proclaimed that He is the Light of the World (John 8:12). Into a world darkened by evil, Jesus came to shine God’s light and show us the Father. What humility he had, to be born a baby, grow up and live among sinful humanity. His coming brought us bright hope for our desperate condition as sinners separated from God. Through Him, Believers have fel...

December 22, 2019

A great miracle happened in Jerusalem in the second century B.C.E. Antiochus IV ruled over Israel, seized control of the Temple and defiled it with idols. His soldiers violently persecuted the Jewish people forcing idol worship and brutalizing and killing those who refused. A vastly outnumbered band of Jewish revolutionaries won back the Temple, and the people set out to cleanse and rededicate God’s holy sanctuary. Legend has it there was only enough undefiled oil to burn in the Temple lampst...

November 05, 2019

Jeremiah 17:9 says, “the heart is deceitful above all things.” The New King James goes on to say it is “desperately wicked” while the Tree of Life Version calls it “incurable.” That’s a startling verse, and it’s tough to see that it includes no caveats indicating it’s only referring to “the really bad people.” The Bible boldly claims that we all have wickedness in our hearts, and therefore, we’re all vulnerable to getting carried away by it. Mob Mentality Eighty-one years ago, Michael Bruc...

October 16, 2019

Remembering Our Relationship with Him The booths of Sukkot offer us symbols of the fragility and transient nature of life. Tents are temporary, and so are our earthly lives. This physical world is the only one we’ve known, and though we accept that we’ll someday leave it, life-in-the-moment on planet Earth can feel rather sure. But it really isn’t. Our life could end in any given minute. Besides which, this world won’t last. God is preparing to reveal the New Heaven and New Earth, and thi...