God of the Overflow

Pagsanjan Falls

Pagsanjan, Laguna, Philippines

photograph of actual painting by my cousin Lisa Perez

The thief does not come
except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.
I have come that they may have life,
and that they may have it more abundantly.
- John 10:10




You prepare a table before me
In the presence of my enemies;
You anoint my head with oil;
My cup runs over.
-Psalm 23:5




But we all, with unveiled face,
beholding as in a mirror
the glory of the LORD
are being transformed into the same image
from glory to glory,
just as by the Spirit of the LORD.
-2 Corinthians 3:18

Last night I attended the Rosh Hashanah worship celebration with a thousand other intercessors affiliated with Intercessors for the Philippines. Rosh Hashana marks the start of the Jewish New Year, and began at sundown of Sunday, September 16 and ends at today at sundown. These are the first two days of the Jewish month of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar.

Rosh Hashanah is celebrated by Jews with great solemnity because it is believed that God judges the world for the coming year, and that His judgment of every individual is written in His book on  this day. Thus these days are considered a window of time to make it right with the Creator, that the year ahead may be good, sweet, and marked with favorable outcomes. For this reason, Rosh Hashanah marks the start of the ten Days of Awe, an intense period of soul searching, repentance, and returning to God. Within these ten days, God's "sentence" on your next year can still be reversed as one returns to Him and makes an appeal.

This ten-day period ends in another appointed feast called Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement. On this day, Jews believe that the sentence is final: no more appeals will be accepted. 

We are not living in Israel, and we are not Jews, but as "Gentile" Christians who have been grafted into the original olive tree, we do take Israel seriously and believe that Israel's prophetic destiny is being fulfilled right before our very eyes. We can observe the feasts as reminders of our high calling as children of the king, and live a life that is pleasing in His sight. 

I have been interested in the feasts of the Lord for many years, but it is only in the past year or so that I have gained more in-depth understanding about them.

There are seven feasts that God has instituted and which God calls, "My feasts." 

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying,

"Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them:

'The feasts of the LORD,

which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations,

these are My feasts...

holy convocations which you shall proclaim

at their appointed times...'"

- Leviticus 23: 1, 2, 4

These feasts are really intended by God to be observed by the whole world.  Israel is only the stage for them to be acted out, to help the rest of the world understand their deeper implications and spiritual significance.

It is quite remarkable that although the Jews have been dispersed to many areas around the world, the great majority of them have kept their culture and tradition intact. Indeed, the feasts have continued to be observed by Jews the world over.

True followers of Jesus are called "the new Israel," not in the sense of replacing the original Israel, but in the sense that we now are also part of God's prophetic plans for this nation and race by virtue of our faith and trust in the Messiah.  In doing so, we have been grafted into the original olive tree. Yes, we who are the "new Israel" are truly privileged to participate in these appointed feasts of the Lord with greater understanding.

Leviticus 23 explains these feasts, starting with the weekly Sabbath, which is the foundation for all the feasts. The first three feasts - Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, were all fulfilled by Jesus Himself in the spring of AD 32 - with His death, burial, and resurrection. The Feast of Weeks, which falls on the fiftieth day after the Feast of First Fruits, has also been fulfilled, in the summer of AD 32, with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Only three remaining feasts await their fulfillment -  the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles, all of which are fall feasts.

Using these feasts as a timetable, the world is now standing between the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Trumpets, and we are waiting for the events to roll as prophesied, and then Jesus will return.

Last night's celebration was very memorable for me. This is my very first time to ever participate in a Rosh Hashanah worship celebration. There were beautiful dancers, elegantly robed, and the presence of the Lord was thick and palpable in our midst.  There was joy at the start, but as the leader began to explain the deeper significance of the Days of Awe as a ten-day period that we could observe in fasting and earnest soul-searching, we felt a holy awe come into the hall, and many of us went down on our knees in repentance for personal sins.

It is true that the blood of Jesus has already been shed, and our sins have been paid for. But this is the Bridal Season, and there is a divine provision for us to make ourselves ready for the coming of the Lord, to reflect on our walk with God, our priorities, and the spiritual condition of our hearts.

It is not understood by all that the church is not synonymous with the Bride. 

But in Revelation 19:6-8 we read:

Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting:
"Hallelujah!
For our Lord God Almighty reigns.
Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory!
For the wedding of the Lamb has come,
and his bride has made herself ready.
Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear."
(Fine linen stands for the righteous acts of God's holy people.)

The bride has made herself ready.

The bride puts on, as her wedding gown, the "righteous acts" that she has done.

We are clothed with the righteousness of Jesus when we come to place our faith in His finished work on the cross... BUT, afterwards, the bride who has made herself ready will put on the fine linen garments that symbolize her own righteous acts.

The church is not the bride. The bride is the remnant within the church who has persevered and who has overcome.

This realization really takes my breath away.

I know I'm not the only one. But for now I take a long hard look within me, with all my good intentions to be more close to God... yet how often do I become distracted or half-hearted?

I know there comes a time when it will be too late to clean up our lives... too late to obey, even if we wanted to.

We can't fool God. And I got to thinking, "If it all depended on me, and my self efforts, where would I be when the bridegroom arrives?"

But praise God! The price for my redemption has been paid. Yeshua HaMashiach has purchased my salvation! Last night, I really knelt before God in humility and repentance for falling away from my First Love again and again. Help me, Lord, help me to be vigilant. Help me do my part.

Towards the end of the celebration, there was a Jewish wedding dance, so beautiful in its portrayal. So well-rehearsed were the dance moves, the eyes of the bridegroom and the bride were fixed on each other - so in love were they... and this stirred our hearts to truly be as a bride who has made herself ready for her bridegroom!

Several faith declarations for our nation were made to seal the Rosh Hashanah night of worship.  The shofars were blown at the end of each declaration.

Clearly, things are moving up for our nation, and God is now responding to the seeds of prayer that have been sown by intercessors for this nation in the years that have gone by. After the lawmakers impeached our Chief Justice in a near unanimous vote a few months ago, a new one has been appointed by our President. Our new Chief Justice is a Christian.

The economic landscape of our nation is also changing. In August, just last month, the Philippines has become the strongest performing economy in Asia. And what is even more remarkable is that our nation was able to lend US$1 billion to the IMF in June of this year in a move to help beef up the sagging coffers of the organization (see: PH commits $1B to Beef up IMF Coffers).

I'm really bragging... not about what we can do on our own limited means, but about what God can do, if we put our trust in Him. 

We are on our way to a revival; the signs of the times within our islands point to it. We are beginning to see indications of it. And really, as someone who has prayed for this nation for the past  fifteen years or so, I am excited.

As I come to this new season of seeking God, and really becoming an overcomer bride as the last quarter of this year is about to be ushered in, I choose to worship God as the God of the Overflow.

God revealed Himself to me as the God of the Overflow in an amazing way. After Ernie and I encountered a life changing financial bankruptcy ten years after we were married, we both reached rock bottom in our faith... and as I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts, when we reached rock bottom, we found that God was right there waiting to catch us, and draw us to Himself.

These were the very conditions that God was waiting for - bankruptcy... rock bottom... dead end. But God is never hampered or limited when His children end up in a bind. 

Craig Hill once said something that has really changed my outlook regarding life: "Where there's a vision, there will be provision."

And this is the very change in outlook that God began in Ernie and me when we reached our lowest point in our marriage. We asked God to reveal His vision for us. And He not only did that, God also revealed Himself to us as the God of the Provision.

We learned what it means to trust Him to be the God who is More Than Enough. The God of the Overflow.

I know some dear people who literally want to keep old stuff around, just in case it comes in handy for some future use. Surely there are benefits to doing that, but one downside to that mentality is that eventually the whole house becomes a junk collection. It could also hinder us from walking in the new season God is opening up before us.

It's all about trust. Maybe the time has come for us to unclench our fist and let go of that last coin.

Trusting in the God of the Overflow means that I can let go of the past, because I am looking forward to and expecting new provisions to come in. I have to make room for new provisions... and often, that can only happen as I let go of old provisions that I have held on to, just in case.

God is the God of Abundance. In Him I lack nothing.

In this season of Rosh Hashanah, I approach God not in dread or fear that my new year will given a bad sentence. Rather, I am approaching Him as a Father who loves to bless, a Redeemer who loves to grant new opportunities for me to grow and move up to the next level.

I am tired of self-righteous, me-focused religious talk. I am asking God to help me break free from old cycles, old mindsets of self-provision and subtle self-praise.

Less is actually more. Downsizing enables us to travel light. And I need to look at life from the vantage point of abundance, not from a fear of losing what I have.

My heavenly Father also loves to delight His children, and grants them the desires of their hearts.

God is not a Scrooge who is stingy with His goodness. He withholds no good thing from the one who walks uprightly. God's heart is an eternal wellspring of pleasure and delight.

One reason that the ram's horn is blown at the Feast of  Trumpets, is to commemorate the way God provided a ram to take the place of Isaac on the altar.

God is Jehovah Jireh - the God who Provides.

God loves to provide guidance, and a way out.

But my heart has to be made humble...

trust God enough to let go of plans that are not aligned to God's purposes for me...

emptied of self to receive what God wants to give.

"Make good use of what I have provided you - time and new opportunities I allow to come your way. Walk in your calling and in your assignment, I hear the Father speaking to me. 

The Father is helping me see my whole life from an entirely different perspective. He is helping me choose my priorities as well... in the words that I speak, in the prayers that I pray, in the activities that I engage in.

L' shanah tovah!  This means, may the year ahead of you be good, and sweet!

And I trust that it will... because I have put my faith in God whose heart flows over with love for you and me.

And on this important feast, we pray for Israel and all the Jews, that the scales from their eyes will be removed, and they will come to know Jesus as the Messiah, their Redeemer, Savior, Lord and King!