13.7K
Downloads
282
Episodes
Based in Hillsville, Virginia, this is the podcast of ReCreate Church. We are a community of Life and Love.
Episodes
Monday Mar 01, 2021
Monday Mar 01, 2021
The Birth of a Movement
Today Pastor Michael is continuing the study of Jewish holidays and today’s focus is on the “Feast of Weeks”.
Matthew Henry said of this festival, “The feast of Weeks was held in remembrance of the giving of the law, fifty days after the departure from Egypt; and looked forward to the outpouring of the Holy Ghost, fifty days after Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. On that day the apostles presented the first-fruits of the Christian church to God. To the institution of the feast of Pentecost, is added a repetition of that law, by which they were required to leave the gleanings of their fields. Those who are truly sensible of the mercy they received from God, will show mercy to the poor without grudging.”
Thanking God for the harvest He has blessed us with!
Today’s bible verses are found in Leviticus 23: 15-22.
Sunday Feb 21, 2021
Sunday Feb 21, 2021
First Fruits.
Today Pastor Michael is continuing to dive into the Jewish holidays and their meanings. Today is the First Fruits holiday. First Fruits is the sixth of the holidays and just to wrap up these holidays, they are:
- Feast of Trumpets
- Day of Atonement
- Feast of the Tabernacles
- The Passover
- Feast of Unleavened Bread
- First Fruits
This is the holiday following The Passover and while it is called “Fruits”, it’s a grain (wheat) harvest. If we will trust God with the First Fruits, He will trust us with the Full Fruits. The Lord commanded them to present the “first” of the harvest to the priests and the Lord would bless them with the full harvest. The meaning here is, what is the hard thing you need to trust the Lord with?
Also, Jesus rose from the dead on the First Fruits holiday. See 1 Corinthians 15: 20 where the term is used again. Jesus is the first fruits; the festival points to the resurrection of Jesus.
Today’s bible verses are found in Leviticus 23: 9-14, Psalms 126 and 1 Corinthians 15: 20.
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
Sunday Feb 14, 2021
The Door of Blood.
Today Pastor Michael is discussing the Passover, one of Judaism’s most holy and widely celebrated holidays.
Jacob took his family to Egypt, where his son (Joseph) was a high ranking official in the Egyptian court and lived there while his homeland was in a serious famine. The Lord blessed Jacob during this time and even called him “Israel” a name used for the very nation he founded. His family grew and did very well in Egypt but soon a pharaoh was convinced that Jacob and his people could foment trouble and potentially take over the land, so they were forced into slavery.
The Lord helped Jacob free his people from the Pharaoh by sending plagues to the land that culminated in the deaths of the first sons of the Egyptians. He instructed Jacob and his followers to slaughter a lamb and paint their doorframes with blood so that the Angel of Death would “Passover” these houses and spare the children. The Israelites were freed and started their journey to the Promised Land.
To connect-the-dots on three things this story summarizes, we are reminded that:
1-Passover then judged the Egyptians. One day, we all will be judged.
2-Then, the Lord provided a way to escape. Today, we have Jesus as our blood of the lamb to experience salvation and be ultimately freed.
3-Then, it was a doorframe, 3 pieces of wood and the blood of the lamb. In the New Testament, it was three pieces of wood (a cross) and the blood of THE Lamb, Jesus.
Today’s bible verses are found in Exodus, Chapter 12, verses 1 - 30.
Sunday Feb 07, 2021
Sunday Feb 07, 2021
Unlikely Heros!
Today Pastor Michael is covering how the most unlikely of people can be used by the Lord in the most unlikely of ways! So, what makes a super hero: super powers? A life situation? Spandex? :) Sometimes it’s the most unlikely person who simply decides, “Enough is enough!”
Today we’re in Judges and Israel at this time in history (1,000 years before Jesus) is more like the Wild West than a civilized country. There really is no centralized authority and they seem to be at war with mostly, everybody. But particularly the Midianites. Gideon at this point is about as unlikely a hero as can be found in the area but an Angel of the Lord tells him, “Mighty Hero, the Lord is with you!”.
Needless to say, Gideon is not really prepared for that and the ensuing leadership role he assumes, the battles he fights, the hero he becomes is all about trusting the Lord and breaking down idols. Learning the we can never underestimate the difference God can make in our lives, when we trust Him!
Today’s bible verses are found in Judges, Chapters 6, 7 and 8 but particularly in 6 and 7.
Sunday Jan 31, 2021
Sunday Jan 31, 2021
Love Without Strings
Today Pastor Michael is talking about, hugely appropriately before Valentines Day, of unconditional love. Not our “human” love, the easy love, the love that we express with others but mostly with strings (conditions). Jesus showed and defined unconditional love; that is love without limits. Without conditions. Without strings.
Human love is love reciprocated when someone loves us back. But unconditional love is when you show love to those that may not love you back. That may be a bad neighbor or a unpleasant person. Or someone that you simply could never thing of ‘loving’.
When you love without conditions, you are loving as Jesus loves. Unconditionally.
Today’s bible verses are found in John 13: 35 and Luke 6: 27-36. Today, Michael is reading from the New Living Translation (NLT).
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
Sunday Jan 24, 2021
For Now, Forever!
Today Pastor Michael is deep in his study of the Jewish Spiritual Holidays, continuing where we left off last week. He has covered the Feast of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement and today he is examining the Feast of Tabernacles. This commemorates God’s deliverance, protection and provision during the wilderness wanderings of the Exodus.
The Feast of Tabernacles reminds us of the difference between what is for now and what is forever.
The wilderness was the “For Now”. The Promised Land is the “Forever”.
Today’s bible verses are found in Leviticus 23: 40-43 and 2 Corinthians 5: 1-8 and Revelation 21: 1-4.
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
Sunday Jan 17, 2021
UnCancelled!
Today Pastor Michael is talking about how God restores us, if we mess up.
Using the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, The Day of Atonement, Michael examines the Ark of the Covenant, the Mercy Seat and the visible manifestation of God during this holiday and, to the point of the story, goats!
On the Day of Atonement there were two goats used in the ceremony. The first goat was used as a sacrifice. The second goat was used by the High Priest, who laid his hands on the goat and put the sins of the nation upon him. He was then released and never seen again.
This goat was the “scapegoat” and where the term comes from as well.
God wanted people to understand that the bigger story was the coming atonement of Jesus. Through Jesus, we can be “UnCancelled”!
Today’s bible verses are found in Hebrews 10: 1-18, but Michael also touches on Leviticus 16 and 23 and Numbers 29.
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Sunday Jan 10, 2021
Swoosh!
Today, Pastor Michael is taking a side trip past last week’s journey on the Hebrew holidays and jumping in on the weirdness that is the start of 2021.
Using Michael Jordan as an example, Pastor Michael shows that one life can make a difference. Pre-MJ, the Chicago Bulls were not championship material. After MJ: Champions!
Josiah, in the ancient world of Judah, was the Michael Jordan of his day. He was born into a bad situation, put into a difficult role at an early age and looked at the dysfunctional things around him and decided to elicit change. Josiah, at 16, decided that the family tradition of dysfunction had to go. Josiah ‘sought the Lord’ and got close to the Lord. He influenced people to chose different ways of life; people tore down altars and rooted out the strongholds of the devil. Many biblical scholars consider Josiah as the greatest king in his devotion to God. The key point to Michael Jordan and Josiah is that we can be that too, for the Lord! We can influence for the Lord, and be salt and light for others.
We need a reminder that life on this Earth can leave us feeling helpless. We can get discouraged and wonder how one person can make a difference.
Our lives are MADE to make a difference! We are responsible for being the salt of the earth and the light of the world in our own circles of influence!
Not matter how strange our world may be, our Lord is still at work!
Today’s bible verses are found in 2 Chronicles 34: 1-7.
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
Sunday Jan 03, 2021
The Reset Button!
Today starts our 2021 fellowship and ministry. Pastor Michael brings up the great point of “A Reset Button” for the new year. Almost a ‘magical’ one, since 2020 was so crazy with all that happened in all of our lives.
Using the Hebrew Feast of Trumpets as a New Year background, Pastor Michael talks about how, in this new year, we should be “…a little less full of ourselves and a little fuller with Jesus”.
And in discovering how we want a new year to offer new promise, we should examine questions of accountability. Notably:
—Are we walking closer with Jesus than we were a year ago?
—Is our spiritual life stronger than it was a year ago?
—Are there blessings that we may have missed because we weren’t in the right spiritual place?
Has the Lord been speaking to us? Have we been listening?
The one thing we can control in the new year is this: We can choose to trust the Lord!
The Lord will take care of the rest!
Today’s bible verses are found in Zechariah 4: 1-10, Leviticus 23: 23-25 and Numbers 29: 1.
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Tuesday Dec 29, 2020
Betwixtmas!
Today we’re continuing our focus on the birth of Jesus and the Three Magi (Wisemen) and King Herod and the fulfillment of prophecy from the Old Testament.
The Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him to flee to Egypt because Herod is searching for the child and wants to kill him. They stayed there until Herod’s death and then returned. This leaving Egypt recalled a prophecy from Hosea, “I called my Son out of Egypt”. But before Joseph and Mary fled Egypt, Herod commited a horrible act of killing every male son, under 2 years old to ensure that his throne would not be taken. This, in turn, was more prophesy fulfillment, this from Jeremiah, of Rachel’s “weeping for her children”.
After returning from Egypt, Joseph was warned in yet another dream to settle in a town called Nazareth, where his son will be called a Nazarene, fulfilling yet another prophesy, from Isaiah.
Today’s bible verses are found in Matthew 2: 10-23, Hosea 11: 1, Jeremiah 31:15 and Isaiah 11: 1.