Sign up to save your podcasts
Or
Share Day 3 - Issue 16 - 04/05/16
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Share to email
Share to Facebook
Share to X
Or
Day 3 - Issue 16 - 04/05/16
Leviticus 25:10 NLT
'Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.'
God required that his people Israel dispense with all outstanding debt every 50th year. This was financial debt, land against which a family had raised money was to be returned to its original owner regardless of whether the loan was repaid or not. In an agrarian society, land was the economic driver and once land was lost a family had no means of generating income for themselves. They were enslaved both to debt and their dependence upon someone employing them. Jubilee was a year of mercy, undeserved favour, and so a year of celebration. Even the land was to be left fallow and anything that grew was to be consumed with thankfulness, a sign of God’s mercy.
Jesus, on his return from successfully resisting the devil in the wilderness, read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue (Luke 4:14-21) and then announced that his ministry was the fulfilment of the year of Jubilee. Christ is the means by which any one of us can access God’s undeserved favour, not as a right but as a gift, one granted to a humble and repentant heart.
The Church, now God’s expression in the earth, is itself to continue this ministry. We have the language and liturgy of salvation but fail to express it throughout our neighbourhoods. What might God’s favour look like along our streets? How might we together express kindness beyond what is due? We are invited to live in the spirit of God’s Jubilee announced at the start of Christ’s ministry and realised through his death and resurrection. Pentecost seals us for such work.
QUESTION: How could you and your church take good news to the poor, bring release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, set the oppressed free and through this announce the year of God’s favour?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for your underserved favour, the mercy of God. I offer myself as a vehicle to live out the favour of God throughout my community, and pray for insight to work with others in declaring a year of Jubilee through the acts of mercy I engage in.
View all episodes
By PremierLeviticus 25:10 NLT
'Set this year apart as holy, a time to proclaim freedom throughout the land for all who live there. It will be a jubilee year for you, when each of you may return to the land that belonged to your ancestors and return to your own clan.'
God required that his people Israel dispense with all outstanding debt every 50th year. This was financial debt, land against which a family had raised money was to be returned to its original owner regardless of whether the loan was repaid or not. In an agrarian society, land was the economic driver and once land was lost a family had no means of generating income for themselves. They were enslaved both to debt and their dependence upon someone employing them. Jubilee was a year of mercy, undeserved favour, and so a year of celebration. Even the land was to be left fallow and anything that grew was to be consumed with thankfulness, a sign of God’s mercy.
Jesus, on his return from successfully resisting the devil in the wilderness, read from the prophet Isaiah in the synagogue (Luke 4:14-21) and then announced that his ministry was the fulfilment of the year of Jubilee. Christ is the means by which any one of us can access God’s undeserved favour, not as a right but as a gift, one granted to a humble and repentant heart.
The Church, now God’s expression in the earth, is itself to continue this ministry. We have the language and liturgy of salvation but fail to express it throughout our neighbourhoods. What might God’s favour look like along our streets? How might we together express kindness beyond what is due? We are invited to live in the spirit of God’s Jubilee announced at the start of Christ’s ministry and realised through his death and resurrection. Pentecost seals us for such work.
QUESTION: How could you and your church take good news to the poor, bring release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, set the oppressed free and through this announce the year of God’s favour?
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, thank you for your underserved favour, the mercy of God. I offer myself as a vehicle to live out the favour of God throughout my community, and pray for insight to work with others in declaring a year of Jubilee through the acts of mercy I engage in.