Every 50 years, the Jewish people would pause to take a sabbath year that was different than all the others. This sabbath year would be marked by rest, celebration, homecoming, and freedom.
Here is the cool part, all of this would be happening while no one is harvesting the fields! Sounds like an economical nightmare but in God’s grand design it was the exact opposite. Every Israelite would return to their homeland, debts would be forgiven, slaves set free, and land would be returned to original owners or descendants. This was a year marked by redemption, forgiveness and renewal.
Here was the promise from God if His people would trust the process of the year of jubilee…
18 “‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land. 19 Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety. 20 You may ask, “What will we eat in the seventh year if we do not plant or harvest our crops?” 21 I will send you such a blessing in the sixth year that the land will yield enough for three years. 22 While you plant during the eighth year, you will eat from the old crop and will continue to eat from it until the harvest of the ninth year comes in. Leviticus 25:18-22
This is just how good God is.
When He asks us to follow in radical obedience and sacrificial generosity, He makes blessing flow in unexpected ways. He is the Lord of the Harvest, even the earths yielding bends to His will. Supernatural harvest comes to those who trust the Lord in their rest and honoring of the sabbath, in their forgiveness to others and their radical generosity.
He is the Lord of the Harvest, even the earths yielding bends to His will.
Let’s have a year of jubilee at Vima! Let’s see this year marked by the blessing that follows trust in the Lord in our rest, forgiveness and generosity!