Day 50 - Last Day, New Start

"For my Father's will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise Him up at the last day."  ~John 6:40

REFLECT

This is the last day of a fifty-day spiritual journey, but a new start for living on a higher plane.

During the past seven weeks you have been contemplating seven life-changing words. But they are not just words, and they are not just concepts. They are life itself. The point of the year of Jubilee in the Old Testament (Leviticus 25), was for God's people to take a pause from their normal patterns of life, and come back to the essential building blocks of a healthy, God-filled, Holy Spirit-empowered and inspired life.

• Sabbath: a time and an attitude in which we rehearse that God and God alone is in control.
• Proclamation: knowing what you stand for in life, and letting others know it.
• Redemption: being freed by God's great acts of deliverance.
• Freedom: cherishing the liberty that God brings to every area of life.
• Forgiveness: accepting the mercy of God and letting go of those you've held indebted to yourself.
• Healing: letting God restore your spirit, your body, and your relationships.
• Justice: standing for what is right and being an advocate for those who are downtrodden.

And then the Messiah came. In the synagogue of Nazareth he read about "the acceptable year of the Lord," and announced that it was all being fulfilled. Because Jesus came, everything is different. And everything is more new than it has ever been before.

Fifty days come and go in the blink of an eye. I invite you to choose to live in the Jubilee from now on!

MAKE IT REAL

Commit today to using the next ten months as a season to probe the themes of Jubilee deeper, and to make them real in your life. List three ways you intend to do that. I would also recommend a couple of books to help you on this journey: "Sacred Rhythms" by Ruth Haley Barton; on the theme of arranging our lives for Spiritual Transformation; also "The Safest Place on Earth", by Larry Crabb, a description of the true church as being a place of true spiritual community, of love, acceptance and forgiveness.