Dear friends, I believe the Lord's "feast days" and "law" are a very important part of restoring divine ORDER to the church. Below is a discussion between me and a friend (Matt - matthewwp@msn.com) about this subject. Matt and I exchanged several e-mails and I have pieced together our discussion in a more readable format. Feel free to comment as the Spirit leads. Grace and Peace, paul j.

Matt: There are a lot of folks who are performing Jewish feasts, Passover, etc etc and this is all well and good for educational purposes. It is a kind of Sunday School lesson...

Paul: I don't think the Lord put things in His Word just for Sunday school lessons to give us a good teaching. God declares in Lev. 23 that these feasts are "MY" feasts to be celebrated "forever." They are not the feasts of the Jews, they are the Feasts of the LORD which he set aside as appointed times for His purposes to be fulfilled. All of these feasts honor and point to JESUS. When we celebrate Passover we are honoring the Passover Lamb Jesus. Zechariah 14 declares that during the millennium all of the earth will keep the Feast of Tabernacles or else they will not get any rain! This is the feast that celebrates the 2nd coming of Jesus. They are all about HIM, and my family and I have found it a joy to celebrate HIS feasts and honor HIS Son Jesus. There is no bondage whatsoever.

Matt: We are getting into a miscommunication, probably because I rif off e-mails too fast without really thinking. I am not "against" any keeping of feasts; I am warning against imbalance as I see it, or have seen it. Jesus said that one of the errors of the Pharisees was exact correctness in law; tithing mint and cummin for instance, yet ignoring the weightier matters; mercy, righteousness etc. He was getting to the heart of God as a loving Father in the Spirit as opposed to the religious alternative of keeping rules, rituals etc.

So, I am all for feasts, etc, any of this activity that illumines us more to Jesus, who is the fulfillment of it all, and we individuals joining together as the church should be becoming Jesus. As long as feast keeping, etc etc is fulfilling this greater purpose and not being a ritual which people use to attain (or sustain) righteousness we're OK. My prophetic "spidey sense" only tingles when I see ONE IOTA of self-righteousness raise it's ugly head in folks who keep the feasts and start to look down their noses at those who don't...

However, we are under a NEW and better covenant. Jesus came to fulfill all that was done by the Jews in the O.T. as types and shadows of LIFE in Him. He DID fulfill it, and the apostles teaching His message turned the "world" upside down.

Paul: That is right, and if we are to be like Jesus, then we will be a fulfillment of the law too, and His feasts are part of His eternal law. The Scriptures are neither Old nor New, they are Eternal, and although the manifestations of His law have changed (ie. sacrifices) the law of God is eternal. The first century apostles joyously celebrated the feasts. (see 1 Cor. 5:7, Acts 18:21, 1 Cor. 16:8, Acts 20:16).

Matt: Now we are getting farther apart. I am 180 degrees opposite to this bro; the covenant of grace and liberty is a better covenant. The OT scriptures reveal God's righteousness but mercy and truth and grace came thru Jesus. Otherwise you'd be stoned to death for that prophecy you gave that was a little off! (LOL)

I do not see the church as having to fulfill any law at all. Jesus did it. We are to be the bride; we are to love God (worship) and love our fellow man; that's it. That's the extent of the law I'm under as a New Covenant believer. Anything I do is an expression of love, grace, liberty in the Holy Spirit towards God and man. I see those references to keeping the feasts as being spoken TO JEWS in a time and to a culture when they were 100% geared towards that anyway; not as a legalistic requirement for me, or to a group of bikers I'm preaching to, or say a tribe in Africa I am evangelizing!

Again I do not deny any of your revelation, and I would love to keep any feasts with you, etc etc, but as I said what I see too often is a religious spirit (the most deceptive of princes) coming as an angel of light (notice the relationship to false apostles) leading groups into an inward mode of religiosity and NOT to the streets with the good news.

Paul: That is the problem with people's perspective of "the law." A better translation of torah is "instruction." What are you going to do after you get those bikers and tribal African's saved? You have to teach or instruct them. And God's law is instruction, not some legalistic mumbo jumbo that people MUST follow. Once you have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit you WANT to follow God's instruction not because you have to, but because you want to love Him who first loved you. The problem is that the early church has been so removed from her Jewish roots that when instruction is given and it sounds "Jewish" people reject it as legalistic, but in reality this order will bring us into liberty when we follow it after the Spirit.

Matt: I have seen imbalance come in. One of the problems of "churchianity" has always been a tendency to perform religious activities and neglect the weightier matters; visiting sick, caring for the poor, preaching and ACTING OUT the good news to the lost. Simply living life immersed in Jesus and the Holy Spirit. True Christianity fits any culture; it just purges the sin. Jesus and the apostles did NOT come to Judaize the world. This starts with the tithe and goes right down to every feast, sabbath etc. God open our eyes!

Paul: Amen to the weightier matter of the Law, but Matt 23:23 says, "these you ought to have done (justice, mercy and faith) WITHOUT LEAVING THE OTHERS UNDONE (tithe). The feasts and the sabbath should at least be "remembered" as the scriptures admonish, and they WILL be celebrated during the millennium and all of eternity. Forever, means forever (Lev. 23:21,31,41, Ex. 12:17)

Matt: Yes but again WHO was Jesus speaking to? Jews. Who was he speaking about: Jews UNDER THE OLD COVENANT! The lamb had not been slain yet; to be accurate about THEM Jesus had to say this, but do not strain at the gnat and miss the camel! The weightier matters of God's heart! Am I getting thru?

Paul: I understand your point about the weightier matters, but none of God's covenants will be "done away with." THEY ARE ETERNAL, and if He gave instructions to the Jews, then that means me and you too. According to Gal 3:29 - "If ye are Christ's, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise." You are a new testament spiritual Jew. The natural Jews were given the correct order for God's kingdom, but they did not have the right heart attitude, so God looked to the Gentiles (see Rom 9-11). The true church since Jesus (spiritual Jews) have been given the right Spirit (heart attitude) but we totally lack the proper order. This is due mostly because the early church severed herself from her Jewish roots in order to compromise with the pagan traditions and bring in more converts.

Matt: The minute I get in a meeting where people start bragging about what a "blessing" they got from doing some Hebrew ritual, I rebuke the religious demon trying to clamp onto my mind. This is a danger zone as is ANY RITUAL which men create to replace the Life of Liberty in Christ thru the Spirit.

Paul: Rituals in themselves are not bad, it is when we start putting our trust in the rituals that it becomes sin. Any time you meet together with more than just a few other believers, there will have to be some kind of structure (ritual) as to how you will share and worship. Why not follow the order for meeting that the scriptures give? The Jews were given the divine order of worship not Constantine and the Catholic church from which most of the modern day church derives its order of worship.

Matt: My prayer is that when God has individuals studying the O.T. feasts, tithe, rituals, sacrifice, etc. they will receive the revelation and NOT try and make a doctrine, or religious exercise out of it putting people into bondage. Some of us have just too much free time, or should be using our time finding out who needs help in our congregations and giving them a hand (service) or a prayer or a prophetic encouragement. We have way too much religion and not nearly enough LIVING. The Life in Jesus is expressed in brothers doing business together, sisters helping each other out in the home, praying together, singing praise, true fellowship is lost today in Sunday-anity! We come together in our churches and don't know each other in our homes. We need to sell our sanctuaries, give the money to the poor (among US) and go; follow Jesus! Jesus took men camping; He didn't form a group, incorporate, and preach doing Old Covenant rituals.

Paul: You celebrate birthday's and the 4th of July and Thanksgiving don't you? How much more should we celebrate days that are special to God. Far from a waste of time, it is the best way to honor God with your time. Matt, You may not be able to receive all of this, and that is OK, it will not hurt my feelings at all. I've been given a revelation of the joy of honoring God's feast days and I don't push it on anyone. It is not a matter of salvation, but it is a matter of maturity. One day the whole earth will be celebrating these days, why not get a head start on everyone :-)

Matt: Well said and in the right spirit. That is why I like you; you are sincere, accurate and not trying to control or profit off of God's people as are many leaders today. The Lord has shown Mary that you have great authority in the true sense of Godliness as a servant. My prayer for you is that you stay that way and don't become what many leaders in the religious world would mold you into. I hope you enjoy these fine tuning debates as much as I do. Do you? I ask you to forgive me if I have spoken the truth not in love. I respect your revelation and would like to get as much of heaven here as I can, I just have had too much negative experiences with "feast keepers" in the past in the areas I have mentioned. We all know in part. If you respect my part and warnings in the sincerity of my heart, we together, with other brothers, will find the will of the Lord and hopefully be leaders like Jesus was.

I send CC's to Sal because I respect his input also. Feel free to CC anything I say (like this - not personal confessions!) to other brothers also. I am fully convinced that it takes multiplicity of us humans to find God's balance in these things.

Paul: Amen! I couldn't agree more. This "Jewish Roots" issue is really going to be a stumbling block for many believers in our generation, just like allowing the Gentiles to come into the church in the first century was a stumbling block for their generation. But I really believe that we need to start talking about these issues because this is part of God restoring ORDER to His body. Like you said, it is going to take a company of views to bring further light on this subject.