Pastor’s Corner

Trivia:

Yesterdays Riddle was, What is kept on the table and cut, but never eaten? The correct answer was a pack of cards. I must admit this one stumped me, How bout you?

On the lighter side:

What did the kittens do to their new owner's house? Well of course they created a cat-astrophic mess.

Challenge:

Ecclesiastes 10:17 "Happy is the land whose king is a noble leader and whose leaders feast at the proper time to gain strength for their work, not to get drunk."

This verse focuses on the character of the person who is put in a place of leadership, as well as, the benefit that comes to the life of those who are being led by him due to his daily conduct.

Here Solomon is affirming and instructing the person in leadership as to the desirable qualities that he should strive to achieve. The benefit to those being led by him is that they are blessed in many ways.

We may ask, What are the qualities that a person who is given opportunities of leadership to strive to uphold? Now, the idea of nobility isn't a quality that's just inherited, or rewarded. Rather it is a quality that is sought to become part of the leaders living, thinking, and then working into his followers lives..

Leadership is a precious gift that is gained by instilling these qualities in his life. Now we may wonder just what are these qualities, so Solomon lays them out for us to gain the mastery of them in our life. Though the leader is only human and may falter in these areas of his life, his desire is to gain the mastery of these qualities in his life.

First off is nobility. This focuses on taking responsibility for his actions, and not selfishly seeking benefit and glory for himself, but rather deferring his glory in order to bring benefit for those that he leads.

Secondly, the focus is on upholding feasts that were celebrated in order to encourage contrition and bringing glory to God. This is the simple list of Jewish times of celebration & rememberance:

The Sabbath Day - this was a weekly feast of thanksgiving and human sacrifice to God,

The Passover - this was spoken of in Lev. 23:5 and was a feast honoring the salvation given to the

Jewish people from slavery to freedom

The feast of Unleavened Bread - spoken of in Lev. 23:6 was meant to go through their home in order to

remove any leaven from their house & life (leaven was a symbol of sin)

The feast of First Fruits - Lev. 23:11 which was meant to reflect on the goodness of God to bring new

life, to His children even when they fail and bring harm to their world

Pentecost - Lev. 23:16 speaks of this where two loaves (new meat offering) were symbolizing God's

gift of forgiveness for all, Jew and Gentile alike

Trumpets - Lev. 25:8-10 celebrating Isaac's being spared of being sacrificed for his sin, just as Jesus

was chosen to become the atoning sacrifice for our sin

Atonement - Lev. 23:27 this was a day of remembrance, of confession and attrition for our fleshly

failures and shortcomings

Tabernacles - Lev. 23:34 was also called the feast of booths, remembering and joying in God's

provision that the Jewish nation enjoyed as they journeyed toward the Promised Land

So we see through this verse reflecting on just how upholding these feast throughout the year were to bring us, God's people to the proper realization that all of the riches we have in Christ are freely given to us, not because we are sinless, but because we have recognized our propensity to sin and our need of God's forgiveness and payment for our sins.

All of these opportunities that we enjoy are freely offered to us for our sins and failures. This points to our need to daily, weekly recognize our shortcomings and tendencies to fall away from His grace. Then our necessity to come into His presence and recognize and call on Him for His forgiveness. To recognize that this the only payment that can possibly remove, atone, and ultimately free us form our sin.

SO GO WITH GOD for He forgives our sins, and failures, and bring new blessings into our lives each time we repent, and turn from them. Oh my friend this continuous recognition of our need for confession and cleansing results in His bringing back to us His many blessings. Then He can come and bring back into our lives His communion and fellowship because of our humbly, coming before Him.

This results in the fact that we recognize our need of daily confession and forgiveness. Then that results in us tending to rather than being puffed up with self pride but rather humble realization that we apart from His working through the Spirit. When we surrender to the Spirit's leading this will bring us away from our broken, sin prone lives to a renewal of light and life. So we see the desperate need that we have for coming daily before His presence in confession, exhalation, admiration, and supplication.

Oh my dear saint aren't we so blessed? We can come before Him blessed, and forgiven. Not because we deserve it, but because we have been cleansed and forgiven. Praise His Holy name.