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Category: Appointed Times

My Sheep Hear My Voice

Tags:  hanukkah

Every year at Hanukkah my heart is filled with wonderful, warm memories and my mind tosses about with ideas of activities and/or teachings based on the “Mighty Maccabees.” Our children are now growing in age and maturity–therefore, sword fights and dreidel making just isn’t “cutting it” as far as learning is concerned.

Since Hanukkah is an extra-Biblical observance, not mandated by the Torah, we have much freedom with which to celebrate. While many of the traditional activities are beneficial, I found myself looking for something a little less obvious… something that would make us all think, deeply; something that we could apply to our lives and to our spirituality in the Messiah.

I thought of Yeshua in Jerusalem during the Feast of Dedication and decided to read John 10:22ff. I wondered what His focus would be for that time of celebration. After all, He was in Jerusalem during that time of the winter, and He did remark about some things during Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights. Very eagerly, I read the passage anticipating statements such as, “You are the light of the world.”

What I happened across, however, very well could be the true theme and essence of Hanukkah… a call to follow Him, to be the sheep in His hand, safe from any thief who would snatch us away.

Let’s ponder this: What was the driving force of the Maccabee fighters? It was their determination to remain a set-apart people, an insistence to remove themselves from the pagan practices around them and a complete, whole–hearted desire to belong to God for His glory. They fought to the bitter end in order to prove this fact. Many lost their lives in the midst of this battle… it was a fight to the finish in dedicating themselves to be people who belonged to the God of Yisrael, called according to His purpose.

Our studies in the first book of Moshe (B’reisheet) for the past several weeks are inevitably fresh in our minds. In fact, one can identify this same...

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© 2009 First Fruits of Zion. All rights reserved. We encourage you to share this material with your friends for further personal study. However, This material may not be republished, in print, electronically, or any other form without our prior permission. Adapted from Bikurei Tziyon #71 .

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