Friday, January 22, 2010

Just The beginning



For starters, I know quite a lot of you may be wondering what on earth a shofar is and why I chose to use it in a name for this blog. Well, let me try and explain this as well as I can.
The shofar is a trumpet. It is usually a ram’s horn. In the Old Testament (of the Holy Bible) Joshua, Gideon, and Joab, to name a few, used the shofar to lead the children of Israel. It was used to announce, to alert or warn of danger, to call to battle, or to call to action. It is still used in Judaism to call the people to accountability on the day of Atonement (Yom Kippur).We read in Zechariah 9:14 that the Lord Himself will blow the shofar to call His people. In the New Testament, we read that angels will use the trumpet to announce the warnings for the ‘end times’ and, ultimately, Christ’s return.
Today, the Holy Spirit and God’s Word, the Bible, call out to us in much the same way as the shofar: God’s voice warns us, alerts us to danger, calls us to action or to times of rest, and, most importantly, calls us to accountability. The shofar sounded to announce the coming of the Lord. When it sounded, the people were to assemble, confess, and repent. When it sounded, the people were to worship. The shofar announced the Day of Atonement and Jubilee. It sounded in the midst of battle.
I t was a call to gather God’s people, a call to repentance, a call to enter into battle. God’s voice came to the multitude through the prophets in the days of old, but now the Lord speaks to each believer through the Holy Spirit.
Well, much as I would love to say I wrote that, I didn’t. It came from one of my favorite novels, And the Shofar Blew by Francine Rivers. Powerful book, but that is not the subject of discussion.
Now the part of the whole shofar revelation that gets me is that God still speaks. If He still speaks, what is He saying now? If the Shofar were to sound in the ear of your heart right now, what would it sound about? And since it is sounding in your heart right now, what action are you taking in response? Remember, it is a call to action, so don’t hear it and sit on it.
Well, a while ago the shofar sounded really hard to me and on the pages of this blog I hope to share some of that with you. If you hear the shofar now, don’t hesitate to share the message with the rest of us. For now, I would just like to say that in all your ways, Love…..

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