Prayer: Father, how much better life goes when I am obedient to Your ways and Your words. How meaningful it is to know that you have prescribed laws, statutes, festivals, and worship which keep me close to You and able to live at peace with You and others. Amen.
Reading: Leviticus 25 key: 23-24
23 “Moreover, the land is not to be sold permanently, because the land is Mine. For you are sojourners with Me. 24 For any land you possess, you are to provide for redemption of the land.
Attention: When we are ignorant of the Old Testament, we are seeing God’s Word through a filter which gives us only a portion of who God is, which is foundational to understanding God.
Adonai institutes a new concept and term through Moses to the Hebrew children. It is the term, Jubilee. Most of us if we were asked what a jubilee is, would say it is a festival or a celebration. However, scripturally, it is much more. Adonai prescribed three primary purposes for the Hebrew nation to include a year of Jubilee.
A Year of Jubilee was the 50th year after seven cycles of seven years. God instituted the Year of Jubilee to accomplish three main things:
- It was a time or rest for the soil as well as the people (vs. 11).
- All land was to revert to the original owner (vs. 10-34).
- Every Israelite who had sold himself—either to he fellow countryman or to a foreigner settled in the land—because of poverty and remained unredeemed was to be freed along with his children (vs. 39-46).
The Year of Jubilee prevented the Israelites from oppression of one another (vs. 17). It had a leveling effect on Israel’s culture by giving everyone a chance for a new start. It discouraged excessive, permanent accumulations of wealth and the deprivation of an Israelite of his inheritance in the land. Families and tribes were preserved by the return of freed bondservants to their own families. Permanent slavery in Israel was rendered impossible. (Content on the Year of Jubilee obtained from the Holman Illustrated Bible Dictionary p.1694-1695).
Perhaps we would benefit as a nation if we embraced and instituted a Year of Jubilee into the fabric of America? What would it be like for everyone to have a new start economically? What if taxation was a flat rate or level tax? What would it be like to have all debt forgiven? What if there were built in measures to prevent permanent accumulations of wealth?
Maybe it would be worth the followers of Adonai to introduce the concept of a Year of Jubilee for our nation.
Action: I embrace Adonai’s institution of a Year of Jubilee.
Yield: I have freedom when I yield to Adonai’s plan for justice, restitution, and lifestyle.
Engage: I engage with the Holy when I allow Him to order my steps.
Relationship: Oneness with God and our fellow man.
Prayer: Father, I pray for all Your followers to truly embrace what You have instituted. The principals alone would benefit our nation. Imagine what they would do if we embrace Your ways and live by them with You and one another. Amen.
Memory Verse: Romans 15: 4
4 For whatever was written before was written for our instruction, so that through patience and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Music Video: Maverick City—Jubilee https://youtu.be/4b0Ulck-S-k
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”