Jewish Passover and Good Friday

The Jewish Feast of Passover or Pesach      this year will start at sunset on Monday March 29th and stretches over to sunset on Tuesday 30th and during this Feast holiday, the Jewish families will kill a lamb below the age of one-year and roast it in fire and then consume the entire animal in one sitting; nothing is to be left overnight. They would also apply some of the blood of the lamb on the two doorposts and the lentel of the doorway to signify that blood had been shed and a death had occurred.
The Passover lamb signifies to the Jews that someone (in this case the lamb) had died in substitution for the family and because there had been one death in the family, the angel of death would pass over that household and therefore no death of any family member would take place.
God intended the Jewish Feast of Pesach to be a shadow of the real Lamb of God dying for the sins of the entire human race and Jesus is indeed our Passover Lamb. The night that Jesus was captured almost 2000 years ago was exactly the night of the Passover and because the Jews start their day at sunset right through to the next sunset, Jesus WAS crucified on Pesach and it so happened that the day that Jesus died on the cross was a Friday and hence the Christian decided to commemorate that Day as Good Friday - Good because Jesus Who IS God Himself died for us.
However, due to the difference in calendar used, Pesach and Good Friday do not normally coincide on one particular day (the Jews calculate their calendar following the movement of the moon around the Earth while we use the Gregorian calendar which tracks the movement of the Earth around the Sun) and any overlap would therefore be very obscure. And so, it will be very interesting to note that we have both Pesach and Good Friday falling on the same week and so lets believe that the Lord has something great for us and we receive His blessings in faith.
Once again, Pesach is celebrated by the Jews from sunset (6:00 PM Jerusalem time) on March 29th till sunset on March 30th while Good Friday starts at midnight (local time) on April 01 till midnight April 02.

The Chilean Earthquake and Feast of Purim

When the big earthquake measuring 8.8 hit Chile on February 27, 2010 a friend of mine asked me whether I think the earthquake had anything to do with the Feast of Purim celebrated in Israel and among the Jews on that day. My initial reaction was that the two events have no relationship at all.  However, recent research uncovered seems to point to a linkage after all.

The Feast of Purim    is celebrated each year on the 13th day of the 12th month (Adar) - Esther 9 and this year the feast day started at sunset on February 27 and ended at sunset on February 28. The feast was in commemoration of how God rescued the entire Jewish race from extermination at the hands of Haman, a wicked descendent of the Philistines who was the prime minister at that time in the Persian. His evil plot was uncovered by Mordecai, the adopted father of Queen Esther (he was actually an older cousin of hers) who then got the Queen to go to the king to negate the royal decree (the full account of how the plot was overturned is in Esther 9). In the end the tables were turned - Haman was hung and the Jews turned and got rid of all the supported of Haman and they scored a major victory. So the Jews to this day would celebrate the Feast by giving gifts that symbolizes life.

Chile hosts the LARGEST community of Palestinians outside of Israel. This community is located between Concepcion (the epicenter of the Chilean earthquake) and the capital of Chile, Santiago, which lies north of Concepcion. According to wikipedia, Concepcion has a "twin city," which usually means a sister city in some way, such as through trade agreements or partnerships. Concepcion has listed as a "twin city," Bethlehem in Israel.

  
The Chilean earthquake at 8.8 was the 5th strongest on record. THE strongest earthquake ever recorded was in Chile in 1960 and is called the Valdivia earthquake because the epicenter was near Valdivia. Here is an interesting bit of synchronicity: Valdivia was named after its founder, Pedro de Valdivia, and Valdivia also founded Concepcion and Santiago.
And we all know the recent Palestinian riots in the West Bank of Israel arising from the Israeli government declaring the Tomb of Rachel which is in Bethlehem as an Israeli heritage site. Bethlehem is in the West Bank and governed by the Palestinian Authority. And we also know the intent of the Palestinians - to 'wipe out the State of Israel' - as stated by its late leader Yasser Arafat (sounds familiar as similar words were spoken by another leader of Philistine descent).

According to your faith...(Part 2)

Yesterday I shared about the degree of healing that comes along with our faith and today I want to continue on and share how the Lord provided for me according to my faith. About six months ago I met up with one of my principal business partners who started having doubts about my loyalty with what I was doing even when I kept reassuring him that my commitment to what we were doing had not waned or diminished and that he had my full support all the way.

Anyway, in spite of all my assurances, he still went ahead and recruited additional people into the business and so I did not feel comfortable with the situation and I sent him an email releasing him of his commitment in my case and also assuring him categorically that my Lord Jesus Christ WILL supply all my needs and WILL send me other business opportunities.

No sooner had I sent the email than the Lord actually sent me a number of email introductions for which I did follow up and believing the Lord that these will turn out to be actual ongoing projects. Also the Lord is gracious in that a potential client whom I met in August 2009 and whom I had sort of placed on the back-burner did call me up for a meeting in late January 2010 and after two meetings, have signed my engagement contract and I will be starting work this week. All glory to the Lord.

What I have learnt over the past few months is that the Lord did give me spiritual insights (some people label this as 'sixth sense') to know the outcome way before the actual results are made known. Over the past few months I noticed that there were a number of potential projects for which I did not have a good 'feel' at the initial meetings and these never went past the first meetings. On the other hand there were a few instances where I had very strong feelings of the business coming into fruition and I kept believing and indeed these materialized into actual contracts.

Likewise I had similar experiences even in my equity investments - there were a number of stock counters where I felt a lot of peace to invest in and these turned out profitable - the Lord even gave me levels to liquidate to lock in profits and trust me, the levels given to me were rather interesting levels which even my remisier initially thought were impossible levels but by now she had learnt not to doubt.

Indeed, I am now running with this commission from the Lord, "according to your faith, be it done unto you"!

According to your faith...(Part 1)

My daily devotion this morning brought me to Matthew chapter 9 and I was especially drawn to the healing miracles of Jesus. In chapter 8, we read that everyone who came to Jesus were healed - from minor sicknesses all the way to major ones like raising the dead and cleansing from leprosy.

But what amazes me was Matthew 9:29 where the Holy Spirit recorded for us the miracle of healing of sight for two blind men. You see they came to Jesus and asked Him to healed them; when Jesus asked them whether they believed that He is able to heal them and they said in the affirmative, He gave them their sight "according to their faith". Probably the two blind men only had healing in their hearts and minds and nothing else and so they kept their faith simple.

In Luke 17:11-19 we read that ten lepers came to Jesus and asked for healing; Jesus pronounced them healed and instructed them to go and show themselves to the priest that their leprous condition had been cured. On the way to the priest, one of them, a non-Jew, realizing what had happened turned back to thank Jesus and worship the Healer and Jesus did something more for him - Jesus made him WHOLE. I believe that meant that the stubs on his hands where his fingers used to be began to grow back into fingers and likewise his toes were re-created in an instant.

Today Jesus invites us to come to Him and to draw from Him. What level of faith do we have? According to our faith whatever we are believing Him for, we will receive - if a miracle is what we need, a miracle we will get. Which leads me to an interesting observation. More than twenty years ago I had a very severe attack of spondylitis of the 4th and 5th lumbar. I recalled asking the Lord for a miracle of healing but deep down I kind of was not willing to be completely healed for a simple reason - that condition gave me a passport to the army medical board and 'guarantees' me a downgrading of medical fitness for the balance of my reservist liability. I cherished the thought that finally I could have my NS liability reduced or even have a prematured termination. Even when it became painful, I endured it and found ways to alleviate the pain and this went on for a while (honestly I could not remember when the pain stopped when they finally did) until I received my official medical downgrade to PES C2 which meant no more strenuous exercises or even field deployments.

So what am I saying? that I could have enjoyed my complete healing on the first day itself but because of my level of faith, there was no instant healing in my case. Having learnt from that incident, I will now believe upon Jesus that His finished work gave me divine health and that is what I have been enjoying for some time now. My last major sickness (besides an irritating cough and cold) was more than 10 years ago and I have not even gone for any medical examinations since 1998 when I went for a pre-employment medical checkup. In fact I would say that Deutsche Bank actually saved a lot of money from me not having gone to the doctors throughout my 8-1/2 years there.

According to your faith... what is your level of faith for your healing?