Come Seek With Me

Good to be with you again Friends, for what will be the final Christmas blog in this series.  I want to begin today by sharing with you what I believe the entire Bible is about.  Ready? Getting Back to Eden Everything that we do in this walk, is all about our journey through this imperfect world back to The Garden of Eden. I hear a lot of talk about the book of Revelation lately.   Take a moment to scan through Revelation 22 . What do we find there: the river of the Water of Life the Tree of Life bearing 12 kinds of fruits the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations no longer will there be any curse no need for lamplight or sunlight...why? because YHVH Elohim will shine! This is where we are going Friends!  Are you getting excited?  I am! Most of my readers are familiar with Revelation 22, but I want to introduce you to an almost parallel passage found in the book of Ezekiel.   Take a moment to scan through Ezekiel 47. Now...

Good to be with you again dear readers!  I want to share a word with you that has been showing up in my life for a few months now. 🍃Restoration You see, that is what it is all about.  Soon, I believe that the words of Isaiah 11:12 will come to fruition, and YHVH will "assemble the dispersed of Israel , and gather the scattered of  Judah ."  ↩ Two different people groups, by the way.   Even today, I believe there are those "erecting road markers and signposts", and "setting their hearts toward the highway" (Jeremiah 31:20) for what will be called one of the most important events in history.  It is an event so big that YHVH will no longer be known as He "who brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt. (Jeremiah 23:7)" That must be pretty big! What is it? Ever heard of the Second Exodus? It's a thing.  But don't take my word for it.  Read it for yourself. 11 Then it will happen on that day t...

Are you still here?  Welcome back for the 8th installment of Christmas in July.  I truly appreciate that you keep coming back and do not take it lightly that you give me this opportunity to share.  I hope that you will be challenged and blessed by what you may learn.  Most importantly, my prayer is that YHVH will receive greater honor and glory through the lives of those of us who follow Him as we learn obedience to His ways instead of our own. In Part 7 , we looked at the festivals of Saturnalia and the Kalends of January through the lens of Mr. Clement A. Miles and his book, Christmas in Ritual and Tradition: Christian and Pagan .   After re-reading that blog, I feel like I need to back up and mention a few things that I have only lightly touched upon to this point.  #1 -- Ancient people were more closely tied to agriculture than we are today.  They understood that both the sun and rain were essential in food production and human survival.  ...

Welcome to the first August installment of Christmas in July 😉 If you have just now started this series, you may want to back up and begin with ➜ Part 1  as we've covered a lot of ground. In Part 6  I shared how early believers transitioned from keeping YHVH's feasts to observing holidays created by church leaders and politicians.  In this portion, I want to paint a better picture of what the pagans of the day were celebrating, so you can get an idea of the different festivals that were slowly merged together between 274 and 325 AD under the umbrella of Christmas. While the Bible is my main source for all truth, I will be using a book titled Christmas in Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan  by Clement A. Miles within this blog to share some information about 2 ancient winter festivals.  The book was originally published in 1912, and can be read and downloaded for free at this link on Project Gutenberg .  The research Mr. Miles has done is...

Hello dear readers!  Last we were together I promised you I would start connecting the dots between King Jeroboam's sin and the tradition of Christmas.  I aim to keep my word.  If you are new to this series, please ➜  start here with Part 1 .  It will make much more sense that way!  😀 I have been transparent with you that my original purpose in researching biblical holidays had nothing to do with Christmas.  Like you, I have many warm and happy memories of Christmases shared with family and friends.  It is not my intent to marginalize those memories of my own OR to make you feel guilty for treasuring your own special memories.   My intent is to share what I have learned.   Squirrel!  Do you remember the last time you really "learned" something?  Something that you had to work at?  There is always a bit of discomfort in it.  In the education world, teachers know that they must provide enough challenge to cr...

In my previous post, we looked at King Jeroboam of the divided kingdom of Israel and the false festival that he instituted in order to keep his people from returning to Jerusalem.   (1 Kings 12:26-33 if you would like to review). Why did he do that? Power ... Control ... Fear... If the people went back to Jerusalem, they would know the true way that YHVH desired to be worshipped, and they would recognize the imitation that Jeroboam had given them as the fake that it was. My friend Christy Jordan of Seeking Scripture  has a saying that certainly applies to this situation: You won't recognize a  counterfeit if you don't know the original!   That is what Jeroboam was banking on, and it worked! If you have ever read through Kings and Chronicles, you know the rest of the story... The divided kingdom was marched away into exile by the Assyrians in 722BC.  I contend that the context of scripture surrounding this fact points DIRECTLY ...