Have you ever wondered?

When I first started at my last church, Group Publishing started using the Holyland experience, I was so excited!  The first year we went to Galilee-by-the-sea and saw how Jesus called the disciples and tried fish and figs.  The next year we were off to Jerusalem.
In Jerusalem, Steve and I were Rabbi's with such fun times!  We wore the Tallit but did not know the whole story about it.  So, since I needed to find out again, I wanted to share it with you.

n Numbers 15:38-40 it says:

Understanding the Tallit

In Numbers 15:38-40 it says:
Understanding the Tallit

38 "Speak to the children of Israel: Tell them to make tassels on the corners of their garments throughout their generations, and to put a blue thread in the tassels of the corners. 39 And you shall have the tassel, that you may look upon it and remember all the commandments of the LORD and do them, and that you may not follow the harlotry to which your own heart and your own eyes are inclined, 40 and that you may remember and do all My commandments,and be holy for your God. (NKJV)

The tassel in Numbers 15 refers to the "tzitzit" which is the fringe that is on all four corners of the tallit. The tassels represent the commandments and name of God; they are designed to serve as a constant reminder of God and ones call to observe His instructions.

As clothing needs changed over the centuries and garments with four corners were no longer part of the culture the tallit itself (a rectangular piece of cloth) was designed to hold the "tzitzit" (tassle or fringes) on its four edges.
Most tallits have an "atarah" (the Hebrew word for crown); the "atarah" is commonly a written form of the blessing that is traditionally used when donning the tallit and is placed on the edge of the forehead. The traditional blessing written on the "atarah" and said aloud is: blessed are You, Lord our God, Master of the Universe, who sanctifies us with His commandments and commanded us regarding the commandment of the tzitzit.

In Judaism, the tallit is worn during "Shacharit" (morning prayers), Torah reading services, special occasion services (weddings, bar mitzvahs, batz mitzvahs etc..), and during burial.

In the New Testament we see mention of Jesus wearing "fringes" (or tassles) in the below references: Matt. 9:20

Matthew 9:20 (King James Version)


 20And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment

Luke 8:44 (King James Version)


 44Came behind him, and touched the border of his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.

Matthew 14:36 (King James Version)


 36And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.

Mark 6:56 (King James Version)


 56And whithersoever he entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought him that they might touch if it were but the border of his garment: and as many as touched him were made whole.

Matthew 14:36 (King James Version)


 36And besought him that they might only touch the hem of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.


Mark 6:56:
"Wherever He entered villages, or cities, or countryside, they were laying the sick in the
market places, and imploring Him that they might just touch the fringe (Strongs #2899) of
His cloak; and as many as touched it were being cured."

The Tallit and the Church:
As Christians, we believe that the tallit is a beautiful and symbolic article that the Lord is restoring to the Church who has long since been separated from the Jewish roots of our faith.
An understanding of the tallit will enrich your Christian walk and your relationship with our covenant God. You can use the tallit during your personal times of prayer as "an intimate tent" or as a covering to remind you "that under his wings you can will find refuge" (Psalm 91:4).

Jesus/Yeshua wore "tassles" on His garment, and with a tallit you can have a piece of that same spiritual heritage in your own home and as part of your spiritual life.

In Revelations 3, the apostle John prophesies about the Key of David as does Isaiah in Isaiah 22:22.

Revelation 3:7 (NKJV)
7 "And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write,
‘These things says He who is holy, He who is true, "He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens"
Isaiah 22:22 (NKJV)
22 The key of the house of David
I will lay on his shoulder;
So he shall open, and no one shall shut;
And he shall shut, and no one shall open.

Could it be that part of the prayer shawls symbolism is found in the Key of David? The Key of David opens doors that no man can shuts and shuts doors that no man can open; this is a key that the Church needs! It would be a wonderful restoration if every Church had a tallit... so why not start with you and your church?

*Regarding the blue thread: due to the fact that the extinction of the "chilazon" (this fish's blood was used to dye the thread blue) still remains disputed the blue thread is considered optional and can be purchased separately.

Tallit - 100% Classic wool with blue stripes #24  When we did Rome in 2009, It was all about Paul and we had the perfect person to play Paul!  This person had to know the Book of Romans very well, they had to be convincing and answer questions.  Steve was the perfect person to play Paul.  Keegan was one of our youth leaders in Awana and played the prison guard.  The kids had to try to get to the guards heart for Jesus.  Steve and Keegan played this part so well.  They had the kids totally engaged in activating their own faith and learning why Paul was sent to prison.  The last night in our celebration service, Paul had gotten freed and showed up.  The kids gave Paul a huge shout of praise to the Lord for freeing him.  They stood up shouting Yeah!  It was incredible for us adults to see the kids grow in their knowledge of the Bible. 



In all our studying, growing in in our knowledge of the Jewish traditions has been important, after all Jesus was from a Jewish family and background and celebrated the holy days. 

2010-2011 Jewish Holiday Dates
(Jewish Year 5780)

Rosh HaShanah (the Festival of Trumpets/the Jewish New Year) begins at sundown, September 8, 2010 and goes through September 10. This is the first day of the Jewish year 5770.
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) begins at sundown, September 17, 2010.
Sukkot (Tabernacles) begins at sundown, September 22, 2010 and goes through September 29.
Hanukkah (Festival of Lights) begins at sundown on December 1, 2010. Light candles for 8 nights.
Purim (from the Book of Esther) begins at sundown March 20, 2011.
Passover begins at sundown April 18, 2011 and goes through April 26.
Shavuot (Weeks/Pentecost) begins at sundown June 7, 2011.
Tisha B'Av (Destruction of Temple) begins at sundown August 9, 2011.
Jewish Holiday Descriptions
For those who are interested in knowing more about the Jewish calendar an excellent website is linked here: http://www.jewfaq.org/calendar.htm

From Janette,
I believe the more we know about our past, the better we can choose our future.  I believe that when we know where Jesus' family comes from, who is generational line is, we can better understand the Bible and the context of it.  The more we read about who God is, the more we can appreciate His love for us.  The more we know, the more we grow and the better our life becomes.  I believe that every person has the choice to live as Christ or to not.  But not living can cause some major heat.  I am not sure if I want to sit on that side of life.  I want Jesus to say to me, I know you Janette/Steve, I know that you have served the Kingdom well and that you laid it down for me.  What I don't want is as the Word says, "I know you not". 
The other thing, what about your judgement day?  How can you go through the ten items or less line and not have to be judged on all the stupid, crazy, dumb, ungodly things you have done?  Well, you need to ask the Lord for forgiveness.  I want to go into the short line, what about you?

I wrote this before and it still stands.

We have basically locked ourselves up to hear the voice of God, the Holy Spirit to learn the things that are not of God and break the things and the generational curses that have taken our sight of walking with God fully. This has been incredible as we have learned how to pray off the yuck and become cleaner before the Almighty God, the Holy Spirit has spoken in us along with being healed. We spent a month in Heiskell TN to really get closer to the Lord and to really hear His voice.    

Remember when Adam and Eve were in the garden?  When the snake tempted Eve and Adam with the apple.  Everyone blamed Eve, but Adam is the seed that carries forth through all generations, so the blame should have been on Adam for breaking the covenant with God and then hiding because they were naked.  They didn't know they were naked before the eaten apple, but after.

We started a new Bible class this January, it's from Wellspring Prayer Ministry in Alaska.  It's called Biblical Foundations of Freedom.  It is learning how to destroy Satan's lies with God's truths.  It has another component with it called In His Own Image.  We have been "done" with the class time, but now is the time to put it into use.

I Found Freedom book is about God's nature and satan's lies.  God's nature is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, kindness, faithfulness, and self control.  These are found in Galatians 5:22. 

Satan is the opposite of these fruits, his are rotten fruit with lots of flies around the fruits of hatred, envy, jealousy, unforgiveness, resentment, anger, murder, violence, rejection, fear, self-hatred, self-murder, bitterness, fornication, adultery, and the like. 

When we walk closely with God, our fruits are good and are shared to grow others, but when we don't walk with God, those fruits are rotten and can be shared but they stunt others growth.

BTW - God (Jehovah) is not Allah!  God had a son to save us from our sin, Allah did not have a son to save us.  God speaks life and according to the other- it is spreading hate.  God gave the Jewish people their land back after so much time, and Satan wants to push the Jewish people into the sea. 

"We have been given freewill and in that we are sovereign in our choices.  We are told to choose each day whom we will serve. Whomever we choose to serve, we become servant to him.  The evidence of whom we have chosen to serve is seen in our speech, because it is what come out of the heart of man that defiles him.  Our fruits are either of God, our Creator, or of the enemy, Satan.

Matthew 15:18 (New King James Version)
18 But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man.

James 1:7-8 (New King James Version)

7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.


"In this life, the testing we go through is from the decisions we have made.  When we choose to obey God and to make quality decisions that honor or agree with God, we receive His blessings.  If we choose to serve God, we also choose to allow the Holy Spirit to manifest though us, and we show those fruits of the Spirit.  When we do this, we have peace that passes all understanding.
"If we choose to serve satan, the consequences is that his evil spirits, which represent his nature, will manifest through us.  God NEVER causes evil; it is our choice.  If we choose to disobey God and follow satan, we receive satan's blessings.  In our disobedience, God turns us over to our own devices, and allows us to go on our own way.  This is always of Satan, the devil, whom God calls "the enemy".  As a result we lose our peace and joy."

Exerpt taken from page 3 of Biblical Foundations of Freedom by Art Mathias.

There are many tactics that Satan uses and we have allowed to come into our life.  We may have opened doors and not really even known it.  The key is to find those open doors and find those hiding spirits and shine God's light on them! 

Here are some of those creepy spirits that sneak in and find a foothold and you won't even know it, they come in and hide and come out in the least expected times! 
Accusing spirits are ones that comes in ever so sneaky, it comes to steal, kill, and destroy in whatever capacity it can.  "Accusing spirits can operate in our life when we don't know what the real Spirit looks like.  Accusing spirits build on our ignorance of who we are in Christ.  They tempt us to misunderstand who other people really are. They confuse our thinking about God's true nature. Accusing spirits' goals are to bring us down, to bring others down, and to bring God down.  They seek to separate us from God, others and ourselves.  Satan uses an old military tactic of divide and conquer."

Accusing spirits accuse others, judge others, accuse God and accuse ourselves.
Here is a small list of these spirits...
  1. Refusing fellowship with a person who has changed.
  2. Holding people to their past behaviors
  3. Keeping a record of wrongs
  4. Bigotry
  5. Competion, not feeling whole unless we win
  6. Mistrust
  7. Heaviness
  8. Gossip and innuendo
  9. Being easily offended. Easily offending others
  10. Self-exaltation
  11. Envy
  12. Jealousing
  13. Suicide
  14. Not walking in or accepting forgiveness
  15. Anger
  16. Bitterness
  17. Depression
  18. Fear
  19. Hate
  20. Perfectionism
  21. Worry
  22. Vanity
  23. Blaming others for problems
This list is much longer. 

But I want to share this prayer with you.  You can use this as well.  I will go through more. 

It is the Wellspring prayer

Part 1- Forgiving or Repenting
In obedience we choose to forgive or repent. Matt. 6:14-15, James 4:7, 1 John 1:9

Part 2- Canceling Satan's Authority
In the name of Jesus and by the power of His blood, I cancel Satan's power and authority over me in this issue of ________________________.  Eph. 4:27, James 4:7

Part 3 - Asking for Healing
We ask to be healed of a broken heart or a broken body - free from shame, anger, guild, rejection, bitterness, fear.  We seek the renewing of our mind or the purging of our conscience.  Ps. 103:3, Romans 12:1-2, Luke 4L18-19, Heb. 9:14

Part 4- Listening or Talking with God
Aks the Holy Spirit to tell you His Truth about the specific situation you are praying about.  The Holy Spirit talks to us in a quiet voice, dreams, visions, impressions, or just takes the pain and leaves His peace.  John 14:26

Forgiveness prayer:
Heavenly Father, I purpose and choose to forgive...(the person for what they did).  I release them and cancel their debt to me.  In the name of Jesus I cancel all of Satan's authority over me in this memory because it is forgiven.  Holy Spirit, heal my heart and tell me your truth about this situation.  Listen...

Repentance Prayer:
Heavenly Father, forgive me for... (specific sin). I purpose and choose to forgive myself.  In the name of Jesus I cancel all of Satan's authority over me in this sin- I am forgiven.  Holy Spirit, heal my heart and tell me Your Truth about this situation.  Listen...
The Holy Spirit may take you to another place to purpose and choose to forgive.

This is taken from Wellspring prayer ministry, by Art Mathias.  http://www.akwellspring.com/  you can go here and take a peek at his ministry

     

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