Blog In Audio:
Greetings,
I’ve had another great week in Portugal. Another training course has been video recorded in Portuguese and I am presently editing the videos for the training of many in the Portuguese world. We printed seven of my books in Portuguese and those arrived this past Friday. It was great to be in Lisbon for the weekend and now I am in Aveiro. I have a gathering tonight with many Portuguese pastors from various churches and denominations. I am looking forward to all that God is going to do.
We are in a season where God is going to give us the substance of peace in spiritual and natural ways. It is not peace as the world defines peace. It is peace as God defines it. I am embracing this word from God and Holy Spirit has prompted me to consider the peace offerings of the Old Covenant to understand what cast that shadow. Something true existed in heaven to cast the shadow in the past. That substance of peace was hidden in the instructions of the Old Covenant but is being revealed in its reality through the New Covenant in Christ for us today.
I believe that the offerings in the Old Testament were really a shadow of something that is real in the body of Christ. The writer of the book of Hebrews states that the priests of the Old Covenant offered gifts to God according to the law that were only a copy and shadow of what cast that shadow from heaven (Heb. 8:4, 5; Heb. 10:1).
Before the law was, Christ existed in heaven. The New Covenant in heaven was before the Old Covenant served as a copy upon the earth. The law was informational, but what cast the shadow of the law was and is transformational it its substance.
When we look at the gifts offered by the priests in the Old Covenant, we must understand their truth through a living relationship with God in Christ. The burnt offering was a shadow of presenting of our bodies to God as living sacrifices, because the blood of Jesus has made us holy and acceptable before God. The sacrifice offering was only a shadow of acts that we do that demonstrate our faith towards God. That faith is birthed and released from hearing God in our hearts. Our actions of love towards Him are actions inspired by His love for us. The tithe offering was a shadow of our response to the One who gives us His heavenly bread and wine in every season of our lives. We respond to the gratuities that He gives us through a gratuity of what we have, demonstrating our desire to receive all that He holds in heaven for our testimony upon the earth. The heave offering was only a shadow of our submission to God by submitting to the life-giving sources of authority in our God-given connections in the body of Christ. The vowed offering was only a shadow of who we are in Christ as a demonstration of His resurrection life in our place of fellowship as the body of Christ. We are clothed in the works that God created for us in Christ. The freewill offering was only a testimony to our part in the communion of Christ and our being a community of brotherly love through intimacy in Christ. The firstling, or first fruit, offering was only a shadow of our lives as prayer before God that opens the path of heaven’s inheritance and destiny to our children and our children’s children in the earth. These seven offerings define our relationship of love and life in the body of Christ. Because of these, we can experience the truth of the peace offerings that were made in the Old Covenant shadow of what is true life.
The peace offerings of the Old Covenant were offerings of participation. They included elements of a wave offering and of a heave offering. As a wave offering, it was a testimony of thanksgiving and praise to God. As a heave offering, it was a testimony of being one with God through a oneness with Him, and Him in one another as the people of God.
The people of God are the body of Christ, a community of people in communion with God and one another by the life of God’s Spirit. This is a season of new revelations of God’s peace. We will experience a greater thankfulness to God for the peace that He has given us as His dwelling place in the earth. It is a greater communion with God and with one another by His Holy Spirit. In a time when the world offers us disappointments and failed promises, we will know the goodness and faithfulness of who God is. In this time in a world of disconnections and isolations, we will know greater connections and communion with God and one another. This is not just to know the goodness of God in heaven, but to also know His goodness in and through one another as His family in this world.
Leviticus 7:11 This is the law of the sacrifice of peace offerings which he shall offer to the LORD: 12 If he offers it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer, with the sacrifice of thanksgiving, unleavened cakes mixed with oil, unleavened wafers anointed with oil, or cakes of blended flour mixed with oil. 13 Besides the cakes, as his offering he shall offer leavened bread with the sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offering.
The peace offering was a testimony of thanksgiving. It was not an offering to make peace with God. It was an offering celebrating the peace that was enjoyed with God and with one another by the life and anointing of His Spirit. This offering could be given as a wave offering of thanksgiving and praise for something God did in one’s life. Because of something that God did, a feast of celebration was enjoyed before God, with God, and with the people of God as His family communing together in the blessings of who God was among them.
A peace offering could also be given as a vowed offering. A vowed offering was a testimony of thankfulness to God for an answered prayer or request that you made to Him. A vowed offering could be a thankfulness to God for who He says you are by the life and power of His Spirit.
In a world of uncertainties, the family of God has the certainty of God’s presence and provision in all things. A peace offering could also simply be a freewill offering. Because you know that you have peace with God and with one another as His family, you celebrate a communal offering with God and those you are joined to in His community of life. It is a celebration of connection in spirit and truth.
Blessings,
Ted J. Hanson
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