Hanukkah ended December 20th. This year, I have been more interested in this Jewish holiday than I ever have been before. I am not Jewish but a little research about it has led me on a treasure hunt, finding greater revelation and fascination with Jesus. In this season, where so many Christians are focused on the birth of Jesus, why is it important to look at Hanukkah?
Hanukkah means “dedication” and it commemorates the rededication of the Jewish temple after the Maccabean revolt. This deliverance of the Jewish people from the tyranny of the Greeks came over a century before Christ was born. The Jews were greatly outnumbered and God brought miraculous deliverance through a family known as the Maccabees. I have to admit the first thing that fascinates me about the subject of Hanukkah is the celebration of the multiplication of oil. After the Maccabean revolt in 165 BC, there is a story that appears in the Jewish Talmud that the Jews cleansed the defiled temple and lit the temple lampstand with only one jar of oil that should have lasted only one day. That oil lasted 8 days until more oil could be readied for burning. At the Lampstand meetings that we host at our house once a month we have talked about pressing out oil for ourselves so that we will have a reservoir filled with oil to burn brightly. What is the “oil” we need in our lives? The oil of a history with God. The oil pressed out by meditation and study of God’s word. The oil of growing devotion and love toward Jesus. Just as in that Jewish legend, we cannot get this “oil” in our own strength. We also need supernatural multiplication of that kind of oil. We offer our small part and He adds the other 99%. As I began to study Hanukkah even more I began to see that there was a greater miracle that the Jews experienced than the multiplication of lampstand oil. Jesus Himself and what He had come to do as Messiah and Deliverer was the greater miracle. The only time this holiday is ever mentioned in Scripture is in John 10. This is a fascinating passage in which Jesus is responding to the question asking whether He was the Messiah or not. I came across an article by David Brickner from a Jews for Jesus newsletter in 1998 that gives a simple and clear look at this passage revealing Christ in the Feast of Hanukkah. Below is one excerpt from the article. (The “Antiochus” mentioned was the Greek/Selucid ruler who declared himself “the manifest god.”) “The rededication of the Temple was a reminder of God’s power to keep His promises and preserve His people Israel. But One greater than the Temple stood on Solomon’s porch that day. And He made an astounding claim. “I and My Father are one” (v.30). Remember, this is Hanukkah. Fresh in my people’s minds was the fact that they had rightly rejected the false claims of Antiochus. Now here is Jesus, standing in the Temple asserting His own claim to deity. The reaction of my people was predictable. “Then the Jews took up stones again to stone Him” (v.31). And if He hadn’t been who He claimed to be, they would have been absolutely right to do so.” To read the entire article, CLICK HERE. The truth is Jesus is the Messiah, and He is everything He claimed to be, yet was missed as the “greater miracle” to the Jewish people. He was the one who could deliver them from more than the threat of Roman tyranny; He had come to deliver them from the guilt and punishment of their sin and to bring them back into right relationship with Father God. We have a great opportunity to pray for Israel and join with the apostle Paul’s desire that all of Israel would be saved. Let us pray for the Jewish people in this Hanukkah season that they would see the Light of the World, Jesus as their Messiah who is the one who still has the power to keep his promises and preserve His people Israel. Happy Hanukkah!
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I am so thankful for these time to get together for the purpose of beholding and worshipping the Lord and pressing out oil to fill the reservoir that our flame draws from.
It is so valued and valuable to spend time in praise and worship, thanksgiving and adoration of the Living God. Not only does He greatly value it, we join with the worship that is happening around His throne day and night. It is not a superfluous activity to fill time or simply a means to make ourselves feel better. Worship is something He is worthy of and time spent doing it honors Him. Yes, it does change our hearts and encourage us as we do it, but ultimately worship is about Him. Oh, that our worship would get bigger! This Lampstand, Ian Wilson led us in worship, it was a time of engaging with the Lord and He manifested His presence. The Message I (Matthew) shared briefly from Zechariah 4, continuing to remind us that it is the supernatural supply of oil that we need. We do our part to press out that oil and God supplies it supernaturally. What an encouragement Zechariah 4 is! Zechariah was a prophetic encouragement to those God chose to lead the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem in that day when the Jewish exiles had returned to the land. God was going to help! He promised He would be the supply. He does that for us in the assignments He gives us. We depend on His supply and we are “wow”ed when He comes through. Julie shared more from Revelation 4, specifically about the ministry of the living creatures around the throne. They sing, the great song of heaven, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God Almighty, “ The beauty of the heavenly throne room is truly our reality and it is so valuable to stand before this powerful picture and ask questions. Why these details? Why living creatures? Why 4? Why wings and eyes? Why these 4 faces? One possible connection is that the Spirit is linking the 4 faces of the living creatures with the 4 aspects of Jesus revealed in the 4 Gospels. Each Gospel have things in common yet each has a unique purpose and message and they correspond to the faces of the Living Creatures around the throne. These creatures never cease beholding the Lord and declaring what they are seeing. We have a similar calling as worshippers to BEHOLD Him and to DECLARE! This kind of beholding and declaring produces a response; it brings forth the response of the elders falling down before the thrown and casting down their crowns and singing a new song! The elders sing of the worth of Jesus. We can’t even imagine what it cost Him to be slain UNTIL we know the Beauty He lived in BEFORE He was slain!! We look at what He descended from and where He is exalted to and everything shifts for us! Response: We prayed for impartation for each individual! I love these times where everyone participates in encouraging one another through prayer. It was an especially sweet time for us (Matthew and I) as parents to see Issachar stepping out to pray for individuals and share encouragement. Stay tuned for the December Lampstand as we are going to be doing something different and talking about Hanukkah and the miracle of oil! WORSHIP We had the awesome privilege of having our friends, Samuel Knopp and his son Ethan join us for the Lampstand. Samuel led us in worship and it was a powerful time lifting up the name of Jesus. We truly were positioning ourselves before the throne and beholding the Lord! I love the powerful way the Lord can bring agreement as we worship. I love that the Holy Spirit will speak the same thing to two different people in order to highlight something He wants us to see or understand. The Lord was speaking to my heart during worship about being a Bride who has made herself ready. I was reading Rev. 21 and 19:7. Kim Ellis also came to Matthew during worship feeling a similar stirring from the Lord. She shared that in thinking about Jesus coming back it is like engagement. When people were engaged in Biblical times the man would go to prepare a home for his Bride, which is what Jesus is doing now! And, women who are engaged do things to prepare for their wedding! As the Bride of Christ, what are we doing to prepare? Are we "waiting" for Him to come? Like Esther who prepared for an entire year before going to the king...we need to be preparing ourselves with sweet fragrances of prayer, weeping for our loved ones, being prepared with oil. Howard carter shared Psalm 77:11-14. I so appreciate the Lord stirring His word in people's hearts. MESSAGE We have been focusing in these Lampstand meetings on getting oil, being fueled, learning to live with our hearts alive and connected to the Lord with His Word alive in our hearts. We have specifically been pressing into Revelation 4 and 5 for the last several meetings because we feel like gazing at this "beauty realm" fuels and steadies our hearts in a powerful way. How many people can claim they have had a heavenly vision experience? It certainly does happen, but it isn't necessarily a common experience. Yet, we have this incredible gift in the Word of God of a "heavenly vision experience"! We can choose to "go there" by asking the Spirit to open up understanding of this passage! I'm going there!! I want the reality of what is going on around the throne to touch my life. I want to live daily connected to this heavenly reality! At this Lampstand meeting, Matthew shared about Revelation 4 and how we get oil from gazing on the beauty of God revealed in this throne room picture. He walked through the details that are included in this heavenly description and how and why these things are significant.
RESPONSE How can we respond to this consideration of God and His beauty other than in worship? We took time to lift up our gaze and our voices again in song! More on Revelation 4 in November.... It is interesting how the Spirit leads. We had arranged for Ian Wilson to lead worship at this meeting, but earlier in the week, I (Julie) had felt like I should prepare to lead worship just in case. And, that day we discovered that Ian was feeling under the weather and so I stepped in to lead with a thankful heart that the Lord had prepared me ahead of time! I felt that there was such grace to enter in and to go before the throne boldly together. Matthew shared briefly about being fascinated by the Lord and beholding him. This has been our inspiration in digging deeper into some Biblical topics that will help us fix our hearts on Jesus and behold Him. I shared from Revelation 4 and 5. I gave a brief overview of these chapters looking at the context of them within the full picture of the book of Revelation. John is in prison on an island and he has had an encounter with Jesus and then he is instructed to write messages to seven churches. Then as chapter 4 opens, he sees an open door into the heavens and he hears a voice (it is Jesus) inviting him up to "see what must take place after this." But, before John is given the revelation of the things that will come to fulfill all of history, he sees a throne. This is truly the kindness of the Lord that He invites us to see everything from the vantage point of His throne. Once we behold the throne and really study this incredible scene, we have greater grace to see BIG things as BIG and small things as SMALL. So, why bother to study this rather fantastical scene in a rather fantastical book? Because the Scripture makes it clear that we are destined for that place! Colossians 3:1-4 says that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places, and exhorts us to fix our minds and hearts on those heavenly places. None of the details of that scene have changed since John caught a glimpse of it! It is so worth our time to look at the details and the big picture of it in order to understand that this is where our hearts are called to be even now, but also this will be a beautiful familiar place to us for all of eternity. Jesus, in Matthew 24:6-8, commands us not to be alarmed in light of terrible things that will occur on earth. How are we not to be alarmed? Even today we see so many troubling things happening around us and so how can we avoid a response of fear? I would argue that fixing our gaze for significant amounts of time on the throne of God that is firmly fixed in the eternal places gives us confidence to stand firm in difficult times. We will look again in more detail at these passages in our next Lampstand meeting! Worship response We took time again to go before the throne, inviting the presence of the Lord to stir our hearts and seal His word in us. Prayer for needs: We always take time to pray for personal needs, as we feel this is important that people can find encouragement in agreement. We also prayed for our national leaders to have wisdom as hurricanes were tearing through parts of the country. What a sweet blessing these times of fellowship with the Lord are for us! Thank you to all who come and join us! Race Weekend in Bristol and a week of moving bedrooms around in our house (read: CHAOS!), and then a Lampstand meeting! Circumstances may not always seem ideal, but it is always a blessing to make time in our lives to stop and seek the Lord. Worship: Even before we began to worship, we jumped right into a prayer time for God's people in this region to be a house of prayer. We were meeting and worshiping that night at almost the same time as the Bristol Nascar race. There was an encouraging story from years ago about a young girl who had a vision of a racetrack and a small house of prayer in the same area and that God heard the sound from the tiny house of prayer as being louder than the sound of the racetrack. This is an encouragement to us that even though we may be small, God sees and hears from heaven. We were praying that God would awaken ALL of His church in this region to be a praying people who would cry out to Him! Ian, for those of you who don't know him, is an excellent worship leader (and a husband to Abbi and father of 2 cutie little girls). He has written some songs that are among my favorites. On this Saturday night, he was focusing in on Jesus. We were really lifting Him up during worship and looking at Him and His work on the cross and His mercy and goodness. It was so powerful. There was truly a grace that was given to us to see Jesus, to behold Him, as we lifted Him high together. Matthew said that during worship he felt like the Lord was saying He would establish a "helpline" through our praise. He read from Psalm 28 and said that as we lift up Jesus and make much of Him (praise), then we will see Him work on our behalf. Linda said she felt during worship like there was a portal open and the Bride was standing ready with voices filled with praise. The Message: We sometimes hear a message that so encourages us we know we couldn't say it any better so we share that with the folks who come to the Lampstand meeting. This was one of those times. We listened to a message from Times Square Church in NYC by Gary Ham entitled "Behold the Man." He was looking at the passage in John 19 when Pilate brings Jesus before the people in the crown of thorns and purple robe, all beaten and abused, and says, "Behold the Man!" This message went so much along with what Matthew has shared at the last two Lampstand meetings and what the Lord has continued to highlight to us that it was a powerful challenge to us to fix our eyes on Jesus. Especially in the midst of challenges that we face, we must fix our eyes on Jesus. We must answer the invitation of the Spirit to BEHOLD this Man. This One who has created the heavens and earth, and performed so many miracles, who claimed to be God, who then took the punishment for our sins by dying on the cross. This One who lives now to make intercession for us and who IS coming again to rule and reign on the earth. Here is the link to the teaching...it is worth it to listen! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afWjdJCwBiM The Response: Before we moved into a response, Skip Cone shared a thought comparing Zechariah 6:9-13 with the John 19 passage. Hundreds of years before Jesus came, Zechariah prophesied this invitation to behold by putting a crown on a man with the same Hebrew name as Jesus (Joshua, which means "salvation"). That Joshua received the word that God was sending forth, His servant "the Branch". It is amazing that word "Nazarene" means branch. Jesus had the title of “the Branch” declared over Him on the cross when he was crucified. The sign said, “Jesus of Nazareth, The King of the Jews” (John 19:19). Amazing to see God's word declare Jesus from cover to cover! The work of the Holy Spirit is truly to lift Jesus up and to draw attention to Him! After the message, we broke up into groups to pray for one another and to share together anything that specifically impacted us or that we felt we needed to respond to. Let us all live our lives beholding Jesus and considering who He is, what He did, and what He is doing now and what He will do... Let us be fascinated by Him all of our days! Worship: What a beautiful time of fueling as we gathered on July 29! Ginny Wall graciously led us in a time of worship together. Ginny, if you don’t know her, is a soft-spoken person who loves Jesus deeply and has a beautiful folksy style voice. She knows many Scripture songs and whenever she sings, it brings a peaceful atmosphere of God’s presence. She was singing at this particular meeting about the Lord being a consuming fire and asking Him to ignite our hearts. Through the songs she had chosen as well as her spontaneous singing to the Lord, we were singing about surrendering to the Lord and inviting Him to have His way in our lives. I love these worship times and the opportunity to lift Jesus up together with others as well as the opportunity to be still and listen for what the Lord is speaking. It’s awesome the way He will highlight something to different individuals during worship that He will weave together throughout our time together that confirms what He is speaking to each of us. I had this experience as I knew the Lord was speaking to me personally about learning to really listen for His voice. After worship, Matthew shared a passage from Kings about Elijah hearing the voice of the Lord not in an earthquake or a fire or a great wind, but in a still small voice. This confirmed what I was sensing from the Lord that I need to learn to be STILL and just BE with Jesus and learn to discern His whisper. The Teaching: Matthew reviewed what we talked about in June: Beholding the Lord! There is a door standing open in heaven (Revelation 4) and that indicates an invitation to COME UP and see the One seated on the Throne. He said that all we talked about last week was worth repeating because God has continued highlighting this message even since our gathering in June. Since that Lampstand gathering, Matthew shared the same message again at a church in Mooresville. He and I also both had dreams in the same week about beholding the Lord. In his dream, he was speaking at a conference and knew he needed to talk about Psalm 27:4 and beholding the Lord. In my dream, I was also speaking to a gathering of people on a VERY high platform (about 50 feet or more up in the air) about seeking the Lord (the high platform would indicate that He is elevating this message in a pronounced way!). Then more recently, he had another dream about a blue sheet we use at prayer containing “Hymns of Revelation” which are songs and pictures in the book of Revelation about Jesus, broken down into phrases so they can be prayed. In the dream, he was praying from these prayer sheets and the words were being projected onto a dry erase board l and the letters were becoming BOLD and then the words were growing in size! Through these various encounters, the Lord is highlighting to us that it is truly critical to “behold Jesus.” To fix our gazes on Him and be transformed because gazing on Him in love changes us. He felt like all of this, particularly the latter dream, was a challenge to go deeper in the word of God and to enter into a prayer journey with the Lord. He quoted Skip Cone’s prayer from TRIHOP the previous night, “Open the natural mind of man and interpret the Scripture for us!” We listened to a brief exhortation from Julie Meyer who has been with the International House of Prayer in Kansas City for many years and is a lovely worship leader, mother in the Lord, and prophetic singer. In her message she was exhorting people to sing the word! Singing the Scriptures over our own hearts transforms us and gets the word written deep within us as it becomes a tool to encourage others! Response: Our response time was worship, and in this time Ginny shared a song she had written from an experience she had when she lived through a hurricane in Florida. She also led us in a Scripture song from Revelation, “The Spirit and the Bride say come!” This was a powerful time of agreement with the Lord and asking Him to encounter us in His word. Also, asking Him to prepare and fuel our hearts for the “storms” we may be facing either on a large scale as a nation or in our individual lives. Sometimes you know you’re on the right track because of the opposition that comes. This Lampstand meeting certainly presented some interesting challenges in the week leading up to the meeting. I don’t know if we were wise enough to realize that much of what we were facing was a tactic of the enemy to get us off track, but thankfully God gave us grace to persevere, we faced the meeting, and God worked in it! Bethany Oakes led us in a beautiful time of worship, ministering unto the Lord and focusing our attention on Him. It was so good to set aside all the things that had been pulling at us and trying to distract us and to simply fix our eyes on the Lord. We are so grateful for Bethany pressing in to touch the heart of the Lord and leading us into that place of encountering Him. At our last meeting, we announced that we would be taking a deeper look at some themes in Scripture that will fuel our hearts. At this meeting, we began that deeper look with a topic that Matthew and I both love so dearly: the “Beauty Realm”. This is the term we use to describe the places in Scripture that describe visions of God, His throne, the heavens, and His beauty. Revelation 4 is one of those amazing passages, a “theophanies” or picture of God in the Scripture. It begins with John seeing a door standing open in heaven. Matthew shared from this passage and talked about how Jesus is the door (John 10). He wants to open up revelation of His excellence and beauty to us. He also talked about “Beholding the Lord”. We want to have a gaze that is fixed on the Lord. He shared from an article by the late David Wilkerson, founder of Teen Challenge and pastor of Time Square Church in NYC. The article was entitled, “The Ministry of Beholding His Face.” This article references 2 Corinthians 3 and describes the ministry of every believer as the ministry of beholding the Lord. Beholding is a strong expression that means fixing our gaze. Matthew shared it this way, “I won’t move from my position. Before I do anything else, before I try to accomplish a single thing, I must be in God’s presence.” Beholding is like looking intently, trying to see something more clearly and to understand it deeply. We want to behold Jesus! We want to look intently at Him and try to know and understand Him in a personal and intimate way. An amazing thing happens when we gaze at Jesus: we are transformed. We become like what we worship, what we gaze at! When we spend time studying Jesus in the Scripture and talking to Him and worshipping Him, we are changed. We become more like Him. RESPONSE: We value these times to respond to whatever the Lord is highlighting in worship and in the message. We don’t always pray for each individual, but on this particular night, we felt that was the right response. So, we gathered around each person and spent time asking the Lord to open up more understanding of who Jesus is. Each one responded to the message and asked for greater revelation of the Lord and His beauty. What a precious time to pray together. I love the way the Holy Spirit will move among us as we lift each other up to Him. It is one of the most refreshing and encouraging things to feel other believers gather around you and agree with the Lord’s heart for you. I love the way He will stir His spirit in each person and release encouragement through words, prayers, and scriptures. Wow what a great May Lampstand meeting! Julie led our time of worship on the keyboard and did a fantastic job! We are thankful for these times to simply behold and worship the Lord. It is so good to sing about who He is, like from Psalm 46, THE LORD OF HOSTS IS WITH US, WITH US IN THE FIRE, WITH US AS A SHELTER, WITH US IN THE STORM! Whew! What power in declaring Truth! I (Matthew) shared from Psalm 19, specifically verses 7-11 The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; 8 the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; 9 the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. 10 More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. 11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward. What benefits there are from reading and studying the Lord’s word, His instruction! There is converting (change), restoration, and reviving for our souls! It brings gladness to our heart, makes us wise, and gives insight for living (our eyes enlightened!) If we really believe all this it will change our approach to the word. We see it is more valuable than gold! We then took some time and prayed through this Scripture as a group as we worshiped some more and responded in singing after voicing our petitions! We continue to press out oil by studying His word at these meetings and hopefully encouraging lifestyles of dedication to the word and connection with the Lord. We will be taking time in future meetings to discuss different subjects in the Scriptures that will fuel our hearts, like studies in the beauty of God, our identity as the bride of Christ and our relationship to the Bridegroom, etc. We are looking forward to receiving the encouragement the Lord has for us the rest of this year. Great time of fellowship and connection with the Lord at the April Lampstand! Here are the highlights of the meeting: We had a special treat because Sharon Anderson came and led worship! This was her first time leading and it was truly a blessing! Julie shared briefly about the battle that we are always in as believers and learning to wield the sword that we’ve been given, which is the word of God! (Ephesians 6) The weapon of the word of God is truly powerful for pulling down strongholds and taking captive every thought that is not helping us know God better. Matthew then shared about the place of the word and worship in spiritual warfare. We took time to respond in worship and prayed for people with needs for healing. I love these times together and how the Lord is faithful to stir among us and encourage us in His presence! We press on in these excellent times of gathering together! We are so grateful for the way the Lord meets us. Here are a few highlights from our February meeting!
Bethany Oakes led worship and did an awesome job going with the flow of the Holy Spirit! We took some extra time in worship before and after the message and it was truly a refreshing time to be in the presence of the Lord and to lift up worship to Him! Kim felt that the Lord was speaking about someone feeling like they were on a roller coaster. We took time to pray for anyone who was feeling that way and Linda had an excellent understanding from the Lord: “Get off! That’s not your ride!” (If you are reading this and feeling like you’re on a roller coaster for any reason, we are praying that God would speak that same word to your heart, get off! You don’t have to ride that crazy ride! Let the Lord bring stability to your mind, your heart, your life!) We prayed into Isaiah 55:1-3. The Lord really is the fountain of living water and He wants us to come TO Him and drink deeply. He wants to refresh and refuel His people. “Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. 2 Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. 3 Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David. We had a “guest speaker”! We listened to a Dana Candler message from One Thing 2016 and it was a powerful word about being fueled from Matthew 25. -What is my reality in YOU? This was a question she asked of the Lord early in her journey with HIm and His answer to her heart was “Not much.” This seemed like it should be discouraging, but it was said with such hope that it drew her to press on in the Lord. -His path is HUMBLE. He is the Lamb who was slain. He is conforming us into HIS image! We aren’t going to spend years pursuing Him and end up feeling proud of ourselves…the goal is HUMILITY! -The path of following Jesus is COSTLY, but we ALWAYS gain HIM! He is the great reward! -She referenced Matthew 25, the parable of the 10 virgins, in the context of Matthew 24. Jesus is coming back for a Bride. We want to be a Bride consumed with the affection of loving Jesus. -We want to have an inner life of consuming love for Christ (oil and reserves of oil), not just an outer life of good works (the lamps). We NEED BOTH! We spent time in worship responding to this message, which was a rich time. We also prayed for anyone with physical needs. |
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