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Feast of Tabernacles — Day 7
People often ask, "How can I know what God wants me to do?" and "What would Jesus do?" Richard Agee explores those questions in a study of John 6-7, in which Messiah Yeshua (Jesus) explains what it means to "do the will of My Father" (John 6:40). Yeshua is the Living Word (John 1:1; John 1:14), the Living Law (Matt. 5:17-20), the Living Torah. (Torah is a Hebrew word that means "instruction." In its original sense in the Bible it refers to the instruction given in the first five books, Genesis–Deuteronomy. Human tradition later expanded that meaning to encompass oral judgments and commentary on that written law.)
Yeshua is our example for how to live and how to view the world. If the Spirit of the Creator of the heavens and earth is in us, i.e. guiding our lives, what are we then? We are a living Torah too! Each of us will be a living Word of God in the kingdom that will come and is already here via its influence through us and through the Spirit.
If we are representing the kingdom of God and its constitution, the Torah, we are to live by that constitution as ambassadors of God (2 Cor. 5:18-20). As with ambassadors of nations, if we have a situation that is too difficult to determine how God’s policy, His Torah, guides us in responding, we are to send an emissary back to the capitol to get guidance, i.e. pray for God’s wisdom in applying His instructions (James 1).
Why does the prophet Isaiah write that in the last days before the Day of the LORD that people will say, "Come let us go up to the mountain, the house of the LORD … that He may teach us concerning His ways And that we may walk in His paths" (Is. 2:2-3)? It will take a while — 1,000 years to be exact — for the world to learn God’s will.
Yeshua was accused by religious teachers as being a know-nothing (John 7:15). Yet, Yeshua learned from the best school, by studying the Torah, Writings, and Prophets (a.k.a. "the Old Testament") and praying for wisdom. The Father’s will is given in the Torah and explained by Messiah, the prophets, and apostles.
It’s easy to judge based on what we see (John 7:24)). How more important is it to judge based on what God sees, to pray for His wisdom.
On the Eighth Day, God’s appointment with His people the day after the seven days of the Feast of Tabernacles, a day apostle John calls "the greatest day of the feast" (John 7:28), Messiah cries out that He is the Living Water. On that day, a tradition developed based on Isaiah 12:1-3 ("salvation" in that passage is the Hebrew word yeshua, which means "God saves") that on the Eighth Day water was drawn from the Pool of Shiloam in Jerusalem and paraded around the altar seven times then poured out.
Do people around us know we are ambassadors of God, know who sent you, based on your actions, attitude, and words? The Torah teachers when Yeshua came should have recognized Him by His actions and words. Are you "dead" like the rocks of the altar or "alive" when the Living Water is poured out on you? Are "streams of living water" flowing out of you (John 7:38)?