This study is about how we will take the Promised Land, as the church, and as individuals. During this week’s study, I want to focus on how we can individually begin to practically cease from our wanderings, mostly in circles in the wilderness, and begin to walk in our purpose, our Promised Land from God.

It is no accident that this year’s Feast of Dedication, or Feast of Lights, celebrated by the Jewish people, began on what Christians celebrate as Christmas Day, and ends on New Year’s Day. On Christmas Day the first candle of this feast is lit, and on New Year’s Day, the eighth, the last candle of the feast is lit. Prophetically, eight is the number of new beginnings. This year there is a grace from God for dedications that will bring forth a new beginning.

This feast was not one of the original feasts mandated through Moses, but it is one that even the Lord Jesus celebrated when He walked the earth, and it does have special importance for Christians, just as all of the Jewish feasts are prophetic. The Feast of Dedication is the celebration of the victory of the Maccabees over their Greek oppressors, who sought to destroy the Jewish people by defiling the land of Israel and the heart of the land at that time, its temple. They did this in the most insulting ways, even smearing pig’s blood over the altar.

There has likewise been a similar defiling of the temple of the Lord in our time, the church, and it, too, is being done in some of the most insulting ways. However, just as the insults of the Greeks aroused the Maccabees to determine that it would be better to die than to tolerate anymore defilements, a similar courage and resolve is going to come on many Christians now. They will embrace death, the death to self, to drive every form of oppression from their lives, and God will meet those who rise up with such resolve with His grace to accomplish the victory.

The Maccabees arose and faced what appeared to be impossible odds when they challenged the most powerful empire in the world at that time. However, they believed God more than they believed the odds. It will take a like faith for us to turn back the onslaught of the Greek mentality of humanism and the other offensive defilements of the temple of the Lord in the most insulting ways, and prevail to reclaim the land, and cleanse the temple. But it will be done. Why not be a part of this and take your stand now?

I know that many, if not most of us, have made many previous New Year’s resolutions, but this year there is a special grace for those who will humble themselves once again, and dedicate themselves to do what is right. It will take a dedication, a discipline on our part which is both obedience and faith, but He will add a special grace to help us this year.

It has come to light through a number of studies that most Christians are living in serious defeat in at least some area of their lives. This does not have to continue any longer, but it will require our dedication to overcome the strongholds. If we will dedicate ourselves again, resolving to obey, this can change this year, beginning today, and turn into a lasting victory.

There is an ultimate dedication that we are called to have as Christians, which many have forgotten, causing much of the defeat and disorientation of Christians. True faith is always evidenced by obedience, which is why the word in the New Testament that is usually translated faith also means faithfulness. True faithfulness with our life is evidenced by obedience to one of the ultimate mandates that the Lord gave to us in Matthew 6:33-34:
 

Many Christians have spent too much of their lives in disorientation and defeat because they have not obeyed this. They have made major decisions based first on professional opportunities, their own desires, and other earthly, temporary matters rather than seeking first the purposes of the kingdom. If we had based all of our decisions on seeking the purposes of His kingdom first, everything else would have been added to us. If our lives had been based on this, we would have nothing to be anxious about, knowing who our Source and Protector is. There is no greater freedom, no greater peace, than that which is the result of living our lives dedicated to the Lord in all things. We are being given another chance to do this now. Do not let this year pass like the others. Get free!

We should all have a special appreciation for the Maccabees because if they had not arisen to take their stand, there would have been no Israel for the Messiah to be born in. Likewise, it is such a resolve that arises in His people that enables Him to come forth in our lives. It is time to arise and fight against every form of the oppression of sin and humanism that has been defiling the temple of the Lord, and the Lord will be with us.