No doubt many of us have already made New Year’s resolutions.

Everyone has good intentions but they often don’t last very long.

As the calendar turned over from 2016 to 2017

it always seems a good time to try to make changes.

However New Beginnings

don’t come from a calendar

and
neither should we wait a whole year before trying to make changes in our lives.

For believers it should be a daily exercise to challenge ourselves and to continue to change. Our goal is to become more are more like the one we declare that we love and follow.
It takes

commitment,

dedication,

and

determination

as well as

courage

and consistency

to keep those resolutions.

Is easy to say, but much harder to do, the words are cheap, it’s our actions that speak much louder.

It’s hard sometimes to admit, that for all of us as believers, none of these resolutions will even get off the ground without the help, direction and support of His Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh. The scripture tells us that the power of Adonai Elohim/Lord God, comes, not by power, not by might, but by His Spirit, and only in His strength, can we do what we have committed to do.

As we have been looking at Chanukah in the last posts, interestingly there is a connection both to:

The Olive Tree

and to the Menorah

in the Vision of Zechariah 2:14–4:7

(which is In the scripture usually read at chanukah).

Zechariah speaks of an earlier Chanukah when the menorah of the second Temple was inaugurated.

The leader of the nation was Zerubbabel, scion/offspring, of the Davidic dynasty and the prophet who conveyed this vision was Zechariah.
The prophet begins by looking ahead to the times when all the world will lack knowledge. Israel is priority as God’s chosen people and leadership of the tribe of Judah, the tribe of David.
Then the prophet turns to Joshua who was the victim of the same sin that plagued much of the nation in the wake of the Babylonian exile. His sons had married gentile women and Joshua had failed to chastise them.
‘Then he showed me Joshua the high priest, standing before the angel of the Lord , and Satan standing at his right hand to accuse him…. And the angel said to those who were standing before him, ‘Remove the filthy garments from him.’ And to him he said, ‘Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments.’ Zechariah 3:1-5

In his vision Zechariah sees the Satan/adversary/accuser, condemning Joshua for this lapse, which was symbolized by the soiled garments he was wearing.

In this passage we see Joshua, the high priest standing before the angel of YHWH (who is/represents YHWH Himself and is, many believe, God the Son: the pre-incarnate Christ) and he is in filthy garments.

This is very strange because the high priest was supposed to be the holy representative of the people, he was the one who carried the names of the people ‘on his heart’ in the stones of the breastplate before God (Exodus 28:30)….if he was filthy in God’s sight, that did not bode well for the rest of the people. And, of course, Satan is there to bring a seemingly airtight case against the priest. Joshua is filthy and everyone can see it, the angel of YHWH is holy. There would seem to be no hope.

But the angel of YHWH removes Joshua’s filthy garments and clothes him in pure vestments. This is a foreshadowing of Jesus/Yeshua! Jesus the Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, the angel of YHWH in our midst. He will be the one to remove the garments of our sin and to clothe us in the vestments of His righteousness, and HE will accomplish it “in a single day” (3:9) at the cross.
As God purifies Joshua, it is on the merits of His own future ‘death’ and resurrection that He is acting.  Joshua was a foreshadowing of the final defeat in a head-crushing silencing that Jesus the Messiah, Yeshua HaMashiach, would deal him at calvary’s cross.

Zechariah 4:

The Vision of the Lampstand and the Olive Trees, and the Power of GOD through His Spirit.

With Zechariah 3-6, we learn about how Joshua the High Priest Was Vindicated By GOD and Was Given New Robes,

the Vision of the Lampstand/Menorah and the Olive Trees, and the Power of GOD through His Holy Spirit, Ruach HaKodesh

God defends Joshua on the grounds that he is a firebrand rescued from the flames. He was immersed in the flames of the exiles spiritual and physical destruction and as such cannot be condemned for the past.
The angel clothes him in the pure vestments and turban of the High Priesthood and warns him that henceforth he must obey the commandments. Only then can he be assured that he is there and will succeed him as High Priest, Cohen Gadol.

 

Joshua’s comrades Channiah, Mishael, and Azariah will join him in welcoming Zerubbabel, (which means, the flourishing one), and in seeing the cornerstone of the temple which figuratively has all eyes on it and is adorned with beautiful carvings.

Finally Zechariah is shown a menorah complete with a bowl containing oil, tubes bringing oil to its seven lamps and even two olive trees to provide a continuous supply of fuel.

This symbolizes that all man’s needs are provided by God – man however must have the eyes to see it.

 

Impassable mountains become hospitable plains if God so wills.

 

A fitting message for Chanukah, and for the start of the year 2017; not only because of the menorah, but because Chanukah too shows that a small band of righteous warriors putting their faith in God. They overcame one of the world’s superpowers and brought purity back to the temple/ the house of God*

If all of us would have the courage of our convictions, fortitude and persistence to press through when things get tough; we will begin to show some of the same strength and endurance as that small, yet victorious band of warriors, whose heart for God and His ways meant so much to them that they were willing to lay down their lives for what they believed.

Let this year be the one our ‘resolutions’ are not only primarily concerning the things of God but more importantly that we will keep them.

This life of ‘new resolution’, is only possible when we stay close to the Lord and allow Holy Spirit/Ruach HaKodesh, to do the work in and through us.

This passage in Zechariah 4:1-6 is where we get our well-known verse, “not by power not by my by my spirit”.

That’s how we will be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might and live an overcoming life and be victorious.

There is no need to look at the whole year ahead. All we need to do is to take one day at a time and with Him we can do it.

The only thing that makes the new year new or for that matter any day, week or month, is the power of God.

He is the One who says, ‘I am making all things new’.
He is the only One with the power to create new beginnings.

It’s not the morning that makes things new but it is,

His mercies which are

new every morning.

Lamentations 3:23

It won’t be a New Year to us simply because its called a New Year but only when we make a resolution to walk in the power of the Lord’s newness.

And the power of God to walk in newness of life is given to those who are led by His Spirit. A whole new way to look at a familiar verse.

 

And the angel who talked with me came again and awakened me, like a man who is wakened out of his sleep.
2 And said to me, What do you see? I said, I see, and behold, a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl [for oil] on the top of it and its seven lamps on it, and [there are] seven pipes to each of the seven lamps which are upon the top of it.

3 And there are two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl and the other upon the left side of it [feeding it continuously with oil].
4 So I asked the angel who talked with me, What are these, my lord?
5 Then the angel who talked with me answered me, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, my lord.
6 Then he said to me, This [addition of the bowl to the candlestick, causing it to yield a ceaseless supply of oil from the olive trees] is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, saying,

Not by might,

nor by power,

but by My Spirit

[of Whom the oil is a symbol],

says the Lord of hosts.

Zechariah 4:1-6 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC)

May His Spirit/Ruach continually strengthen and uphold you as you walk daily with Him.

Shalom.