To Understand the Bible, You Must First Understand God's Plan, Part 2

According to God's revelation of His plan through a series of seven Holy Days that He gave Israel to observe throughout their generations, we are about halfway through God's plan.

Christ fulfilled the first step in the plan-Passover-which defines redemption according to the Bible.

God continually fulfills the second step in His plan-The Days of Unleavened Bread-as He confronts, convicts and converts more and more "living stones," who were selected in eternity to be holy and blameless in His sight, which is the same as being a member of the Ekklesia, the body of Christ, aka the Church. This step in God's plan reflects regeneration. We will deal with this aspect of God's plan in more detail later in this series.
.

God met the standards of the third step in His plan when God, the Holy Spirit came to live in humans. One of the roles of God, the Holy Spirit is to lead each us individually and collectively into all truth (see John 14:10-18). Notice what Jesus promised: "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you." (v.18). Notice He did not say "I will come for you," which is what happens when Jesus returns for His Bride, the Church, the Temple of God. He said I will come to you. So the work of the Holy Spirit, includes the following: "However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come."

Therefore, the indwelling of God, the Holy Spirit, is the same as Jesus, the Christ living in you, according to Col. 1:24-27 "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory."

According to the calendar of Holy Days, computed by Bible scholars and historians for this year, here's what we have:

Passover-Nisan 14 (Wednesday, March 31)

Days of Unleavened Bread Thursday, April 1 through Wednesday, April 7, with the first and seventh of April being annual Holy Days.

The 4^th of April is the day you begin counting the seven weeks, plus one day to arrive at Pentecost. So let's count April 10,17 and 24. That's three weekly Sabbaths. May 1,8,15 and 22. That's four weekly Sabbaths-seven in total. Therefore, Sunday, May 23, 2010 was the Festival of Pentecost, the third annual Sabbath in God's plan revealed in Holy Days.

Now from Sunday, May 23 until Saturday, September 11, we have 110 days, which represents the Church Era.

In the year 2010, the Festival of Trumpets, a memorial of the sounding of trumpets occurred on Saturday, September 11. On the Hebrew calendar, that month is called Tirshi-the seventh month of the sacred year.

What does the Bible say about this intervening time between Pentecost and Trumpets? What is God, the Father, God, the Son and God, the Holy Spirit doing? What should the Ekklesia--the church Jesus is building--be doing?

First of all, notice that the Church era-this period between Pentecost and Trumpets is the longest intervening time in God's Plan. Notice that on this year's Holy Day calendar (2010), The Days of Unleavened Bread, for example, occur immediately following Passover, and Pentecost occurs just 46 days after the end of the Days of Unleavened Bread. When we come to the seventh month, it opens with the Festival of Trumpets, followed 10 days later by the Day of Atonement or (at-one-ment). Five days later Tabernacles begins and eight days after that, God wraps up His plan with a period referred to as "That Great Day," the last day of the Feast.

John 7:37-38 "On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was no yet glorified."

As the Sovereign of all that exists, the Father orchestrates events, circumstances and conditions on the earth. Jesus systematically and methodically prepares mansions for each of us, the born from above children of God. (See Isa. 14:24-28; Amos 3:6; Rev. 6:1-8). Jesus serves in several capacities during the period of time as it plays out here on earth. He is the High Priest of the Tabernacle in Heaven (Heb. 8:1-13). He is also building His Church from living stones, fashioned and shaped in the crucible of a dark and dangerous world. Meanwhile, the Holy Spirit works inside each of us, transforming us by the renewing of our minds (See Rom. 12:1-2).

Meanwhile, each of us individually and collectively must ask and determine answers from the Scriptures to the following questions:

Are you a born from above child of God and how do you know?

What are your spiritual gifts that God, the Holy Spirit triggers in you for the benefit of the Body?

Do you see your calling?

Do you understand God's overarching plan?

Do you know God's plan as it relates to the Church [Ekklesia] overall?

Do you know God's plan for you personally?

Do you know God's plan for the entire world?

IFirst, let's answer are you a born from above child of God.

Ezekiel 18:4, we read the following: "Behold all souls are Mine; The soul of the father as well as the soul of the son is Mine; The soul who sins shall die." Now we come to Eph. 2:1-10 "And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins. In which you once walked according to the course of this world [Gk-aion-age], according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among who also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others. But God who is rich is mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast, For we are His workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared before hand that we should walk in them."

Consider the step-by-step process by which each of us becomes born from above:

God enlivens the soul and positions the person to hear the gospel message.As the message flows through the air, God attaches believing faith to it, Therefore when the message enters the person's ears, so does the faith to believe the message. Thus, as Romans 10:17 says: "So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God."

At the moment of belief, Jesus circumcises the sinful nature (see Col. 2:11).

Then the Holy Spirit unites with your human spirit, and you become a new creation (See 2Cor. 5:1).Do you know your spiritual gifts?

Consider the gifts that are the manifestation of the Spirit (1Cor. 12:1-31)

Consider the gifts that we own (Rom. 12:6-21)

Finally, consider the spiritual gifts based in love (1Peter 4:7-19)

Now, do you see your calling?

1Cor. 1:26-31 "For you see your calling brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are."
As we continue this series, we will systematically examine the following questions:

Do you understand God's overarching plan?

Do you know God's plan as it relates to the Church [Ekklesia] overall?

Do you know God's plan for you personally?

Do you know God's plan for the entire world?

Next: An analysis of God's overarching plan