It is so amazing to see the blessings that flow from aligning with God’s will. Some of those blessings are obvious. When we love one another, there is peace. When we give generously, needs are met. When we put God first and spend time with Him, intimacy grows and we become more like Him. Imagine if we were aligned with God’s will in all ways, all the time. That’s God’s desire for us. Jesus set up a plan and strategy for helping everyone toward that goal.
The Five-Fold Ministry
We can find out about it in Ephesians 4:11 and 12. Jesus is the one who gave us the 5-fold ministry. It was meant to be an incubator to create unity and maturity. In it we find an interesting word in the Greek whose meaning doesn’t carry over into the English.
The word “equipping” in the Greek is katartismos {καταρτισμóς}. It comes from the root word, katartizō {καταρτíζω} which means, to mend (what has been broken or rent), to repair. The message we should receive here is that the 5-fold is meant to re-align what has been broken, like re-aligning a broken bone. That is how the word was often used in context. Putting it in a straight forward way, 5-fold was meant to get God’s people re-aligned with Him, so He could work through them and we would come to “…unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph 4:13 NKJV). The purpose of the 5-fold is to birth mature sons. How do we know this? The first word of verse 13. The 5-fold will go away, it will not be needed, once we achieve its goal.
“Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:13 NIV)
Once we all reach unity in the faith, once we all reach unity in the knowledge of the Son of God, once we all become mature in attaining the… fullness of Christ, then 5-fold will no longer be needed. But until then, we need it. The main point here is the power of alignment. The Early Church “turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) because of aligning with God’s ways.
What Happens When We Align with God
There are two examples I like to look at. When Ezekiel addressed the dry bones, he saw everything come into alignment and then God breathed on the bodies. Imagine the scene as Ezekiel saw it—a valley of bones and skulls of human bodies. At this point, the bones are disconnected in a jumbled mess. Ezekiel says “… as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, [they aligned] bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them” (Eze 37:7-8 NIV).
At this point, it is important to note that there is no breath in the bodies. They have just now come into alignment. It was not until they came into alignment that God breathed life into what used to be scattered, dry bones. “So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army” (Eze 37:10 NIV). When we align as God commands us to align, He will breath on us. There will be life in what we do when we align with God’s word. We see this again in Genesis.
“Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Gen 2:7 NIV).
God did not breathe life into Adam until He had formed Adam. In other words, once all the bones were aligned and all the flesh was set in place, God breathed life into Adam.
The power of being aligned properly with God is the difference between having life breathed into what you’re doing versus beating a dead horse hoping it will eventually move. If it has life, it will rise up and move on its own. Hopefully you get the point.
We Have to Be Properly Aligned with God’s Word
if we are to be anointed with His truth and breath of life. This is how . . .while there are different ways that we can align with God, one significant avenue is timing. Have you ever experienced how mere seconds or minutes can make the difference between success and defeat, between a divine appointment or a missed opportunity? There is a spiritual war over timing. The enemy is trying to “change the set times and the laws” (Daniel 7:25). The good news is our God is able to reverse anything the enemy tries to do because He “changes the times and the seasons” (Daniel 2:21) back into order when we align with Him.
In the Beginning God Established Time for Our Benefit
God literally put a “calendar in the sky” to order our world—day and night, months, and the yearly cycles. The Bible is very clear in Genesis:
“And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years.” (Gen 1:14 NIV)
These were all meant to be a blessing to us—times to work, times to rest, times to fellowship both with God and with others.
The Importance of the Festivals
Not only that, but the festivals (Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles) that He established outline the incredible plan of salvation and were established as “sacred time.”
“Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me. Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; [Passover] for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt. No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Celebrate the Festival of Harvest [Pentecost] with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field. Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering [Tabernacles ] at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field. Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD.” (Exo 23:14-17 NIV)
These Verses Show Us Three Main Feasts
in which He commanded the men of Israel to attend. God instructed them to keep these festivals “throughout your generations as an everlasting ordinance” (Exodus 12:17). Many people believe that when Jesus died He did away with the feasts and that the early church did not celebrate them. However, this is not true. It is clear from the writings of the early church that they participated in these seasons of celebration, enjoying a new, expanded revelation of who God is. Are Gentiles required to keep these feasts? Absolutely not—but we miss out greatly when we fail to recognize the depth of insight into God, His plan of redemption and the fulfillment found in Him. According to Romans 11, we have been “grafted in” to the Hebraic root, opening the door for us also to receive the rich inheritance in the knowledge of God. We reject any form of legalism or requirements of works, while affirming the joy of aligning with God and His chosen people.
To Understand the Bible We Must Understand Our Roots
While Paul freely and joyfully participated in the feasts (Acts 18:21), he came down hard on anyone operating in legalism (Galatians 4). Too often, we “throw out the baby with the bath water” and remove ourselves from the treasure God has for us. To truly understand the Bible, we must understand our Hebraic roots— the culture in which the Bible was written.
It has fascinated me how the church has been able to teach that the Old Testament is done away with or fulfilled when Jesus said, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me” (John 5:39 NIV). When Jesus said this He was referring only to the Old Testament scriptures. More precisely, the Pentateuch (first 5 books of the Bible). Any attempt to throw out the Old Testament basically throws out the evidence for Jesus being the Son of God. The Old Testament is the same Word/Testament the writer of Hebrews was referring to when he said,
“For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb 4:12 NIV)
Again, the New Testament did not exist when these words were written.
The Beauty of God’s Divine Calendar
All of this to say, God already has His divine calendar. He has spelled it out very clearly in the scriptures of old. There is so much depth and richness in His calendar. It constantly points us to His plan of salvation and prepares us for seasons ahead. Thankfully, when the Gregorian calendar (and others like it) set up by man to replace God’s calendar came into existence, God did not compare His against man’s and apologize for the differences and adapt to man’s calendar. God’s calendar is set in the sky and has built into it the revelation of man’s redemption.
There is a beautiful message that begins to unfold when you align with God’s timing. When we partake of the feasts and messages of the seasons that God has given from the beginning of Earth, we are literally entering into the process of actively waiting for and reenacting, in some cases, God’s very own plan. His plan is not just for redemption. His plan is that He would have children all over the earth that look like His first son, Jesus. Not just that, but that we would do even greater works than Jesus did. You see, Jesus was a first fruit. He was the first of many to come. I certainly want to be in that number. How about you?
