THE ACCEPTABLE YEAR OF THE LORD – PART IV
From The HeartPublish date: 07/10/2011
And you shall hallow the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; and each of you shall return to his ancestral possession [which through poverty he was compelled to sell], and each of you shall return to his family [from whom he was separated in bond service]. Leviticus 25:10 AMP
Jubilee was not a man-idea – it was a God-idea. The Father commanded the Israelites to treat the fiftieth year as holy; a year in which fortunes were restored and the people were released from bondage and slavery, and families were reunited and restored. Jubilee was a great equalizer. Debt was cancelled and everyone had an opportunity for a fresh start. Jubilee was a financial deliverance. It is God, Himself, who set the system up as a prevention and cure for poverty!
The Spirit of the Lord [is] upon Me, because He has anointed Me [the Anointed one, the Messiah] to preach the good news (the Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to announce release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to send forth as delivered those who are oppressed [who are downtrodden, bruised, crushed, and broken down by calamity], 19 To proclaim the accepted and acceptable year of the Lord [the day when salvation and the free favors of God profusely abound.] Luke 4:18-19 AMP
In the synagogue, Jesus read from Isaiah 61 and then He proclaimed that the Year of Jubilee – the acceptable year of the Lord – had begun. Jesus IS our Jubilee! Jesus came to bring mankind out of every kind of bondage that we could possibly experience. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law and delivered us from the power of the enemy! Jesus came to heal, save and deliver. He delivered us from sin, from spiritual darkness, from sickness and disease, from mental, physical and spiritual torment, and from the curse of poverty. Poverty is a curse, not a blessing. It is NOT God’s will for us to be poor!
For you are becoming progressively acquainted with and recognizing more strongly and clearly the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ (His kindness, His gracious generosity, His undeserved favor and spiritual blessing), [in] that though He was [so very] rich, yet for your sakes He became [so very] poor, in order that by His poverty you might become enriched (abundantly supplied). 2 Corinthians 8:9 AMP
Although Jesus was so very rich, He became so very poor, so that His children might be abundantly supplied and enriched! Father God does not want His children poverty stricken or going without. All through the Word of God, He tells us that He wants us to be blessed and to have our physical and material needs met. He knows what we need and He promised to get it to us if we seek Him first! Through the cross, not only are our sins forgiven and our bodies healed, but our material needs are also met!
Let those who favor my righteous cause and have pleasure in my uprightness shout for joy and be glad and say continually, Let the Lord be magnified, Who takes pleasure in the prosperity of His servant. Psalm 35:27 AMP
Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in every way and [that your body] may keep well, even as [I know] your soul keeps well and prospers. 3 John 1:2 AMP
The Lord takes pleasure in the prosperity of His children who love righteousness and uprightness! The Lord takes pleasure in our prosperity! He delights in our prosperity! The Lord wants us to prosper in EVERY way!
The way religious tradition preaches it, God wants you poor and He doesn’t want you to prosper, however, the Word of God Himself contradicts that view. The Lord has expressed to us His desires and plans for us and His plans are for our good and our blessing! The Father has pleasure in our prosperity – it pleases Him to bless us and meet our needs, and even to give us the desires of our heart. The Hebrew word translated as pleasure, means exactly that – it means: desiring; delighting in; having pleasure in. It is also translated as: willing; favor; wish. This means that if God has HIS way in our lives, we would be so blessed that we would not only have enough to meet our every need, but we would have more than enough to be able to bless many others and meet their needs!
God is able to bless His children and He is also willing to bless them. What do WE have to do in order to be eligible to receive this abundant blessing? What do we have to do in order to release God’s blessing in our lives? We have to keep His commands!
Deuteronomy 29:9 AMP - Therefore keep the words of this covenant and do them, that you may deal wisely and prosper in all that you do.
1 Kings 2:3 AMP - Keep the charge of the Lord your God, walk in His ways, keep His statutes, His commandments, His precepts, and His testimonies, as it is written in the Law of Moses, that you may do wisely and prosper in all that you do and wherever you turn.
Isaiah 48:18 AMP - Oh, that you had hearkened to My commandments! Then your peace and prosperity would have been like a flowing river, and your righteousness [the holiness and purity of the nation] like the [abundant] waves of the sea.
This IS our Jubilee – not just for one year – but we are living in it now, and into eternity. Because Jesus IS our Jubilee and because we choose to serve and honor Him, we can expect to live in the blessing of God as a way of life!
And the Lord your God will make you abundantly prosperous in every work of your hand, in the fruit of your body, of your cattle, of your land, for good; for the Lord will again delight in prospering you, as He took delight in your fathers. Deuteronomy 30:9 AMP