COUNTING THE OMER – 50 DAYS OF MEDITATIONS AND PRAYER
We have been counting the Omer for 34 days in preparation to Celebrate the Giving of the Torah on Mt. Sinai and the Gift of Holy Spirit. Shavuot is not only the giving of the Torah, but is a metaphor for marriage.
For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is his name; and the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer, the God of the whole earth he is called.
Isaiah 54:5
In preparation the people cleanse themselves, as at a mikvah (a Jewish ritual bath) traditionally used by a bride before the wedding.
“Moses came down from the mountain to the people and warned the people to stay pure,
and they washed their clothes.” Exodus 19:14
The cloud of glory on the mountain served as the chuppah (marriage canopy) For God to unite with His people.
Adonai said to Moshe, “See, I am coming to you in a thick cloud. Exodus 19:9
The Heaven and Earth were the witnesses. The ketubah is the marriage contract and is the Torah or the Word of God, our Covenant.
Shavuot is a time to renew the marriage between God and His people.
What a better time to contemplate ourselves as His Bride.
“For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any other people, for you were the least of all peoples; but because the LORD loves you, and because He would keep the oath which He swore to your fathers, the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of bondage, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. “Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;
Deuteronomy 7:6-9
Week 6 Day 1
IN the beginning, God had created angels, heavenly creatures, and earthly creatures, but for God, it was like when Adam could find no companion among the animals. He wanted to have those who were in His image.
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man is alone; I shall make him a helpmate opposite him.”
And the Lord God formed from the earth every beast of the field and every fowl of the heavens,
and He brought [it] to man to see what he would call it, and whatever the man called each living thing,
that was its name. And man named all the cattle and the fowl of the heavens and all the beasts of the field,
but for man, he did not find a helpmate opposite him.
Genesis 2:18-20 The Complete Jewish Bible
Clearly, to be able to relate to another creature, you must be of the same image; hence we are made in the image of God. Being created in His image not only gives us the ability to relate to our Creator; it sets us apart from the rest of His Creation.
Mankind, being made in the image, created in righteousness, and perfect innocence, a reflection of God’s holiness, is called imago Dei.
And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Genesis 1:27 CJB
When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Genesis 5:1
Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed,
for God made man in his own image. Genesis 9:6 ESV
Though man was created in the image of God, since the Fall, some parts of that image have been distorted, and no longer reflect God’s holiness.
Yet, out of love for His children, man’s sin caused God to bear the image of fallen man. On the day Jesus was crucified, at that moment all of man’s sin was put on Jesus. He was judged as a blasphemer, treated as a criminal, cursed, found guilty, and condemned to death – man’s image was on God.
Father God allowed this that man might bear the image of the risen God – Jesus.
God bore our image in death, that we might bear His image in life.
Then God sent His Holy Spirit to be imbued in man so that we can participate in the family dynamic of the Trinity.
We are now able to enjoy the manifest presence of God.
John 14:16,17, 20
:16 And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor–Counselor, Strengthener, Standby), to be with you forever—17 the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive [and take to its heart] because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He (the Holy Spirit) remains with you continually and will be in you.
:20 On that day [when that time comes] you will know for yourselves that I am in My Father, and you are in Me, and I am in you.
As we press into this we will have installments of God manifesting in our heart that will make Him real to us.
We are called to enjoy the manifest presence.
The person who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who [really] loves Me; and whoever [really] loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and reveal Myself to him
[I will make Myself real to him].” John 14:21
Through this exchange of image bearing, and being filled with Holy Spirit, God created mankind with an ability to interact deeply and intimately with Him.
Ponder on being made in His image and then consider what it is to partner with the Trinity.
Week 6 Day 2
When the Prophet Bob Jones died (August 1985) the one thing he was asked while he was in heaven, before he was sent back, was “Did you learn to love?”
It is all about love.
It is the mystery of why we exist. We were created to be loved and to love.
His love is infinite. He will never love us more or less than how He loves us now.
He told Jeremiah I have loved you with an everlasting love. Jeremiah 31:3.
Father God is love – He doesn’t just love, He is love and we love Him because He loves us.
Those who do not love, do not know God; because God is love. 1John 4:8
Here are two ways God loves in Scripture.
A redemptive love in which He loves, values and pursues everyone. It is in this way He gave His Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish.
But then there is John 14:23, 24
If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word. My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. :24 Whoever does not love Me does not keep My words.
He has delight and enjoyment in those who value Him and He trusts them and partners with them because He loves the relationship. Those who obey Him love others in the way He loves them and He delights in that.
It is a choice. Father is looking for those who have a desire to love. In our desire and willingness to comprehend and experience His love, we learn to love as He loves us and to reflect His love.
You have been created in love, for love and by love to give, receive and return love.
Have you learned to love?
Week 6 Day 3
God is not just King and Creator.
He is the Father of a Son.
Out of His perfect love comes His family.
Jesus made us family.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law,
to redeem those who were under the law,
so that we might receive adoption as sons.
And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son,
then an heir through God. Galatians 4:4-7
Some believe the reason Father changed His mind and began Jesus’s ministry at Cana, turning the water to wine, was because His mother asked. She is His family, and when there is need in the family, Father responds in love.
But there is a second purposefulness of the Father’s love.
God the Father wants a Bride for His Son, an eternal companion to reign with Him forever.
The Bride is not a tall beautiful female in a flowing white wedding dress as many have portrayed her. The Bride is not female or male.
There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. Galatians 3:28 NIV
The Bride is spiritual, spotless and eternal, dressed in fine linen, which is the righteous acts of the saints.
so that [in turn] He might present the church to Himself in glorious splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy [set apart for God] and blameless.
Ephesians 5:27 AMPC
God has determined to bring this forth, so much so, He writes about the Bride and Bridegroom throughout Scripture, and we know that when He writes it in His Word, it will come to pass. (Isaiah 55:11)
While God pictures Himself as the “husband” of Israel…
“But now I am going to woo her —I will bring her out to the desert and I will speak to her heart. “On that day,” says Adonai “you will call me Ishi [My Husband]; you will no longer call me Ba‘ali [My Master].
Hosea 2:16,18 CJB
…He is also the Father who wants a Bride for His Son who will love His Son as He loves her.
For I am jealous over you with godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:2
His courtship began when we were born of the Spirit…
God’s love for us has already been poured out in our hearts through the Ruach HaKodesh
(Holy Spirit) who has been given to us. Romans 5:5 CJB (my parenthesis)
While all are deeply loved by the Father and the Son, not all those Born-Again believers will prepare to be His Bride. It will only be those who are wholly given to Christ as He is to the Father. Those who desire to know Him more and choose to learn to love and be loved.
Watch what God does, and then you do it, like children who learn proper behavior from their parents. Mostly what God does is love you. Keep company with him and learn a life of love. Observe how Christ loved us. His love was not cautious but extravagant. He didn’t love in order to get something from us but to give everything of himself to us. Love like that.
Ephesians 5:1-2 MSG
Imagine billions of people, from all different nations, and tongues who have intentionally chosen love.
Chosen to be a Bride for the Father to give to His Son. Radiantly white, adorned with jewels, walking in true power and armed with God’s love bringing the Kingdom of God. This is who Christ is coming back for!
It is God’s greatest achievement to see the Bride readied, capable of receiving love, living out of love and loving others as she is loved.
The love of Christ has burned from eternity for His Father, and for those Father has given Him for betrothal.
Are you in the family?
Have you committed to being His Bride?
Week 6 Day 4
I love to watch the moon. No matter the season, the silvery white light has always captured my attention.
I have been known to position my bed and pillow just right so the light of the moon washes over me as it travels across the night sky while I sleep. So, when Holy Spirit directed me to the “Book of Mysteries” by Jonathan Cahn– and I saw the title “Moon Bride” He had my attention.
… And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night—and the stars. And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth,
to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness.
And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:15-19
By itself, the moon is dark, sometimes even invisible, and marked with pits and craters. The moon is created to be joined with another.
When the moon rightly joins with the sun, it becomes radiant and lights the night sky.
The sun illuminates the moon. By reflecting the Light, the moon shines bright and serves its purpose for which it was created.
It is the same for the Bride.
Like the moon, the Bride is created to be rightly joined to another.
For the bride the joining must be to her intended; being joined to anything else will not change her identity to the Bride. Once rightly joined, the virgin becomes the Bride or the calah.
This cannot be done in and of ourselves, it is not a mere acquaintance, she must be rightly joined or betrothed to the Bridegroom.
The love of God and His Light overcomes all the imperfections of the Bride, and The Bride becomes spotless and radiantly beautiful in His Presence.
It is in the sacred “joining together” the Bride comes to be.
On the 6th day of Sivan in the year 2448 from Creation (1313 bce), God descended on Mount Sinai and gave Torah to His people. God and His people were joined together by His Word. The Word makes our relationship a true marriage.
We are created to be joined to God by His Word (Jesus).
It is our job to desire this joining. We are to seek Holy Spirit to prepare us fully to be joined to the One that makes us radiantly spotless. And through this joining we become our true identity and accomplish our purpose.
God is calling us to desire to be joined to His Son. It is a choice.
Choose wisely.
Week 6 Day 5
In our waiting for Jesus to return, we find it much like the Hebrew wedding.
The Father has chosen his son’s bride, and the father and son have journeyed to her home.
Father God and Jesus have traveled through space and time from heaven to our home here on earth.
Once the virgin agrees to the Bride Price, the contract (ketubah) is then reviewed.
This Bride Price demonstrated not only his ability to provide for her, but also expresses what he considers her value to be.
For us, it isn’t just a covenantal price of provision and protection; but the most expensive Bride Price ever paid; God paid the Bride Price with His Son’s Life.
If the virgin found it acceptable, they share a cup of wine showing acceptance of the contract. They are now joined as one and she has become the bride or calah and he the bridegroom or katan.
When we accept the Bride Price, we become joined to Him and we become the Calah.
Calah in addition to meaning bride, also means perfect one.
When we are joined to Jesus, we become Calah, the perfect one. Jesus has made us perfect.
For us, Jesus is our righteousness. He has taken our sin and in return has given us purity, and righteousness. We have become new; a new creation in Christ the calah.
The Jewish Bride is now his wife, and he is her husband in every way, except that which leads to family. From this point on, it would take a written divorce to annul the marriage.
Now it is time for the Bridegroom to return home to his Father’s house to prepare a place for his bride. They will not see each other again until the day of their wedding. They spend their time preparing for that day.
Two thousand years ago, Jesus journeyed to the house of His Bride and presented His Covenant.
He has since returned home and we have remained here in the world. No longer do we belong to the world, we now belong to Him. We are in the world, but not of the world.
Jesus has gone home to prepare a place for us.
Our first home we were born into, but our second home – Jesus is preparing just for you. (John 14)
If, He counts the hairs on your head, gives you the desires of your heart, can you imagine what He has prepared for you? Well, it is all that and better – it is heaven.
But before the bridegroom leaves, he offers his bride another gift. This gift is called the mattan.
It is a reminder of his love and that he is thinking of her during their days of separation.
It is also a declaration that he will return to receive what is His.
Mattan– transliteration ntm – means gift or pledge – in Greek the word is Charismata – gift.
In Ephesians 1:13-14, Paul tells us that this pledge or gift – is the Holy Spirit – a promise of love that seals us and that He will return for us. Interestingly, this pledge was given on Shavuot (Acts 2:1-4).
Now, knowing the tradition of the ancient marriage, I wonder, if perhaps, all the gold dust, the jewels, feathers and oil that appear are part of the mattan from Jesus reminding us of His love and that He is coming back.
Are you sealed?
Have you chosen to be rightly joined?
Week 6 Day 6
Jacob and Esau were twins in the Old Testament. Esau was first born of the twins and held the birthright. Jacob his younger brother longed for that birthright. One day when Esau was particularly hungry he sold his birthright for a bowl of lentils. He was more interested in things in the natural than the spiritual destiny that the birthright contained. This is why God said in Malachi 1:2, 3 ““I have loved you,” says the LORD. But you say, “How have You loved us?” “Was Esau not Jacob’s brother?” declares the LORD.
“Yet I have loved Jacob; but I have hated Esau…”
God is looking for a bridal company who puts a value on what God values and hungers for intimacy.
The Lord is looking for those who have chosen to be rightly joined, those who will passionately pursue Him, and will keep their “love on” through the dark times ahead, wait for Him, and then go out to meet Him when He arrives.
Jesus desires this so much that only days before His death, He taught four parables that emphasize how He wants His people to respond. Clearly it shows His last concerns were about His Bride making herself ready.
Think about that, His crucifixion was in a few days and He is so desirous of His Bride, The Church, you and me – He is spending His last hours teaching and talking about Her.
His concern is for Her and He gives Her warning. Matthew 24:9-10
Then they will hand you over to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name. And at that time many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another.
Jesus taught four parables on how He wants His people to respond to Him in end times. The third of the four parables is the parable of the Ten Virgins.
In this parable the virgins are all believers standing before God as chaste virgins to Christ. 2 Corinthians 11:2
All understood Jesus as the Bridegroom and have taken their lamps and gone to meet Him but there is a delay.
Lamps here stand for your ministry. Everyone has a ministry, whether you are a store clerk, a waitress, a bus driver, an engineer, a stay at home mom, retired, or a student, we all have ministries unto the Lord in that we bring the Light of Christ to others.
Five virgins were noted as wise because they brought oil, while five are noted as foolish because they did not bring oil.
Five of them were foolish, and five were prudent. For when the foolish took their lamps, they did not take extra oil with them; but the prudent ones took oil in flasks with their lamps. Matthew 25:2, 3, 4
In this parable, oil speaks of relationship. It is about how Holy Spirit touches our heart as we spend time with God.
He makes our heart malleable, impressionable, adaptable, enabling us to become more aware of God’s desire for us. When we become more aware of God’s desire for us it enlarges our desire for Him.
Our understanding of His love and beauty grows, giving us a zeal for righteousness.
The five wise virgins cultivated their relationship, they took time to encounter and they pursued intimacy in their walk with Jesus.
The five foolish recognize their mistake of neglecting to acquire oil and soon come to realize that no one can give them oil. Spiritual preparedness is not transferable, nor can it be earned.
‘I assure you and most solemnly say to you, I do not know you [we have no relationship].’
Therefore, be on the alert [be prepared and ready], for you do not know the day nor the hour
[when the Son of Man will come]. Matthew 25:12, 13 AMP
We must make this investment for ourselves.
I counsel you to buy from Me gold refined in the fire that you may be rich. Revelation 3:18
Only those who were ready were called to enter in. Matthew 25:10.
The ancient wedding celebration lasted seven nights. Only those closest to the Bridegroom entered the first night.
Each night after others were called to the celebration.
Jesus tells us to watch, make yourself ready.
Do you value the spiritual or the natural more?
Time for an oil check. Has your oil diminished over time?
We must make ways to stay rightly joined in the midst of our routines, the mundaneness of life and especially as the world grows colder and darker.
Week 6 Day 7
Revelation gives prophecy for the Church engaging with the Spirit; saying what He is saying, and doing what He is doing.
What is the Spirit saying? He is telling the Church her identity as the Bride.
What is the Spirit doing? Interceding for Jesus to come and calling those thirsty to come to Jesus.
The [Holy] Spirit and the bride (the church, believers) say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take and drink the water of life without cost.
Revelation 22:17
The Church will be moving in the power of Holy Spirit functioning in four ways; anointed with power, engaged with intercession, established in bridal identity and effective in harvest.
It is the Holy Spirit and the Church as His Bride that join together and for the first time The Church will be in unity with the Spirit.
Rightly joined we experience the heart of God and the emotions of a desirous Bridegroom.
As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. John 15:9
This is not a sensual experience as we know in the natural.
This is an invitation to experience the deep things of God that you may be able to comprehend…the width and length and depth and height to know the love [affections or emotions] of Christ. Ephesians 3:18-19.
It is an invitation to see the beauty of the King; Your eyes will see the King in His beauty, Isaiah 4:2.
Dedicate and consecrate your entire being (spirit soul and body) to Jesus.
Ask for a fresh infilling of Holy Spirit frequently.
Ask Holy Spirit to convict you of things that need to be changed to be more like Jesus.
Ask the Lord to purify your heart- it is the pure in heart who see God.
Devour and Follow the Word of God.
Perform righteous acts.
Resist evil.
Look to His return…Pray, “Come, Lord Jesus, Come.”
Beloved, we are now children of God, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when Christ appears, we will be like Him, for we will see Him as He is. And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as Christ is pure.
1 John 3:2, 3
Blessings,
Pastor Karen-Elisabeth
