“ ‘So beginning with the fifteenth day of the seventh month, after you have gathered the crops of the land, celebrate the festival to the Lord for seven days; the first day is a day of rest, and the eighth day also is a day of rest. On the first day you are to take choice fruit from the trees, and palm fronds, leafy branches and poplars, and rejoice before the Lord your God for seven days. Celebrate this as a festival to the Lord for seven days each year. This is to be a lasting ordinance for the generations to come; celebrate it in the seventh month. Live in booths for seven days: All native-born Israelites are to live in booths so your descendants will know that I had the Israelites live in booths when I brought them out of Egypt. I am the Lord your God.’ ”
Leviticus 23:39-43
"Now we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now it is God who has made us for this very purpose and has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.
Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. We live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So we make it our goal to please him, whether we are at home in the body or away from it."
2 Corinthians 5:1-9
"A voice says, “Cry out.”
And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the Lord blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever.”
Isaiah 40:6-8
We are in the Feast of Succot right now, one of the Feasts of the Lord. Succot is laden with types and shadows, reminders of things that have already happened, hints about events to come, and important spiritual concepts. For me this year: the permanence of dwelling with Him, here and in the life to come, and the temporal reality of this world.
The succah is erected flimsily, the skies are not totally obscured-we can see through to the heavens, a good strong wind will shake it and maybe blow it over...it is, after all, temporary.
We are temporary. Everything about the world we live in is temporary, all of it. Our bodies will wear out, houses, cars, everything, appears for a moment, and then it's gone. The Word of the Lord tells us this very thing, but the Word will stand forever. The scripture reads in John 1-in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...Jesus Himself. In the Lord, as we abide in Him, and with Him, comes the revelation of heavenly secrets, eternal pleasures we will have with the Bridegroom, that we cannot begin to imagine, or compare with the stuff we consider pleasure in this broken world.
Today meditate and dwell on the permanence of the abundant life that only comes from abiding in Him...and abide.
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