Shavuot or the Festival of Weeks or First Fruits is upon us. Shavuot means “Weeks” in Hebrew, but the church knows this holiday as Pentecost from Acts 2 in the New Testament. While this Jewish holiday diverged much in the church after the first disciples of Christ, originally they were one and the same holiday, though for Christians, Pentecost is celebrated for much different reasons than what God had instated for Shavuot in the Old Testament.

For the church, Pentecost is mainly about God’s gift of the Holy Spirit for Christians, because in Acts 2, the disciples of Christ where gathered together when God sent His Spirit in power to them for the first time. It was the completion of Mashiach Yeshua’s (Christ Jesus) promise to them when He said He needed to leave again after He came back by the resurrection. However, this time He would not completely abandon them and said He would send the Helper, the Holy Spirit of God, the Spirit of Truth, or what the Jews call Ruach haKodesh (John 16:5-7, 14:16-20). This coming of the Holy Spirit very importantly, goes with the Offering of First Fruits during Pesach/Passover that links to Shavuot and Pentecost.

That offering day begins the count to Shavuot of which God said, “You will count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath [of Pesach/Passover]; from the day when you brought in the sheaf [of first fruits] for the wave offering, there will be seven complete sabbaths” (Leviticus/Vayikra 23:15-21) - 7 sets of weeks or 49 days. Then on the 50th day, new offerings of crop first fruits and other offerings were made, gathering and worship for the Lord was done, and the festivities and feast of Shavuot were had.

Pentecost is Greek for 50th Day^[2.900.5.1], which refers to the holiday of Shavuot, and also important in this First Fruits/Weeks timeline, Christ was resurrected on the day of the offering of first fruits during Pesach. God timed the resurrection with the offering to point out the first fruits of the resurrection of all believers of Christ; that is, God used the offering of first fruits to show His disciples that His promise of eternal resurrection, eternal life, for believers of HaMashiach (The Christ) was true (see Shavuot/Pentecost in the Lord’s Holidays for more). Christ embodied the very first resurrection of all the resurrections of the saints that comes at the end of this age when the Messiah returns (see Light Within for more about The Rapture).

And so, Shavuot or Pentecost continues God’s promises for believers in Christ, just as the holiday celebrates the continuation of the harvest for God’s people. The Spirit of God came to His believers in completeness of power on Shavuot, giving the disciples spiritual gifts of speaking in tongues and prophesy, for they spoke all kinds of foreign languages to the peoples gathered there, prophesying by the Spirit of God about the great works of God (Acts 2:1-11). That day was actually prophesied in the Old Testament by Joel who said, “‘And it will be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour out My Spirit on all mankind; and your sons and your daughters will prophesy… I will pour out My Spirit in those days…” (Joel 2:28-29/Yoel 3:1-2; Acts 2:14-19).

For Jews, though, Shavuot was about remembering God’s gifts of the summer harvest, still first fruits of the year’s full harvest because the final harvest completed in the fall. Celebrations with much gratefulness for God’s provisions were made on Shavuot, but today, those sentiments of being nurtured by God through the middle of the growing season are much less common^[1.1], because society has moved from agrarian to industrial, so very few people today get most of their sustenance and income from growing crops.

In the centuries of change for Judaism, as they also shifted from growing crops, they shifted more focus towards celebrating the giving of the Torah on Shavuot. The Torah, what Jews call the Law of Moses, is a major focus because the Biblical timeline of Moses receiving the Law on Mount Sinai coincides closely with the timing of Shavuot (see Shavuot/Pentecost in The Lord’s Holidays for more). And so, appropriately, the first fruits theme of Shavuot coincides with the Torah also being a first fruits of God’s law for His people.

This point should be very important to Judaism, because like the first growths of harvest in the summer, the Torah was given as a kind of snapshot of the still forming laws of God that would come centuries later with HaMashiach. Israel and Judaism, though, remain stuck in the middle of the growing season that is God’s spiritual law, and are missing out on the fullness of the full year’s harvest – the fruits that comes with accepting Christ through the New Covenant and a walk in the laws and ways of Christ.

A successful walk in Christ produces fruits of righteousness in a person that is analogous to the difference between crops at Shavuot’s midsummer to the final harvest at the end of the growing season. Some crops are fully mature in midsummer, but they also only account for a portion of the full year’s harvest, so a life’s walk in Judaism, being based on law that is only meant for a portion, and for a certain type of spiritual growth, and for a time is not meant to produce the same spiritual fruits that come with a walk in the laws of God that were instated by Christ. They were made for the whole growing season of spiritual maturity while the Old Law, the Torah, was insufficient.

So on Shavuot, remember the Torah was given through Moses, but also that it was the first fruits for the growth of God’s people, for their time in the last age. We are not to remain in that time and law, but by the power of God through HaMashiach, whom is One with El Elyon, God Most High. Remember also on Shavuot, the church’s very first Pentecost and how the Lord gave the power of the Holy Spirit to us, not simply for spiritual gifts like speaking in tongues and prophesy as shown by the first disciples, but for the spiritual growth of each and every believer who takes hold of the seeds of Christ – the commands and laws of God brought to supersede the Old Law of Torah. The one who nurtures those seeds with diligent care and strength of mind will produce a fuller harvest in themselves akin to the complete year’s harvest that comes after Shavuot.

These fruits coming from the workings of God’s more mature laws for mankind, those laws of Christ, produce a fuller harvest because walking in the righteousness of Christ reinforces the seeds of God, those sown in the house of Israel and the house of Judah (Jeremiah 31:27/Yirmiyahu 31:26). They are the laws in which El Elyon said would be written upon the hearts of His people when His New Covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah was made, not like the covenant made with the fathers on the day [Yahovah God] took them out of the land of Egypt, [the Torah given through Moses] (Jeremiah 31:31-33/Yirmiyahu 31:30-32; Hebrews 8:8-9).

It was done as Yahovah Sabaoth (of hosts) decreed by the prophets, for who is Israel but those in Judaism? And who is Judah, but those of Christ? HaMashiach was born out of the tribe of Judah, the throne and line of David (Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:31), and so the seeds of God were sown into His people, both of the Torah and HaMashiach, but not all seeds took root, for still to this day, Israel rejects the seeds of Christ, but those who took those seeds to heart, received from the ancient root of God that grew from the stem of Jesse/Yishai and from the shoot of David out of which sprang the Branch who bore the mature fruit (Isaiah/Yeshayahu 11:1) that is the laws that supersede the Torah, the Old Law that was but only the first fruits.

It is the New Law, the laws of Christ, decreed and bound to the New Covenant, that if enacted in the life of those who believe in Christ, will produce the fruits of the Spirit of God that was placed within each person who confesses that belief (see The True Gospel and Imposters for more about the New Covenant and how we are reborn with God's Spirit). The promise of the Spirit of God within ourselves to recreate our very being with God’s is that new heart and new spirit within you of which God said, “I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and keep my rulings and obey them” (Ezekiel/Yechezkel 36:26-27).

Being remade with God’s Spirit within us is why we are called temples of God. It is no metaphor, so honor God with your body as His temple by withholding from cuttings and markings of the skin (tattoos and other permanent markings), and inappropriate piercings (earrings are ok) and hairstyles (mohawks and other inappropriate shaving of the head) (Leviticus/Vayikra 19:27-28, 21:5; Deuteronomy/Devarim 14:1). If God told the Jews, who did not have the Spirit of God within them, who were not literally temples of God, to not mar their bodies in those ways, then why should we who have God within us be free of such justified ordinances? Both peoples of God are set aside and holy, assigned to represent El Elyon, but we reborn of HaMashiach represent God most directly of all, so do not profane the name of God with inappropriate presentation of yourselves.

And most of all, glorify God with your body by keeping from immoralities of all kinds (1 Corinthians 6:18-20). Shavuot may have originally been a holiday to remember how the people of God offered up their first fruits of harvest to honor God and express gratitude, but most of us no longer produce crops to offer in the ways of the Old Law, nor do we make ritual offerings, so what fruits should we offer God on Shavuot? What are your fruits for the Age of the New Law, the New Covenant?

They are your works and life of abiding in the laws of Christ, of performing the same righteousness He commands or would do Himself (His righteousness of Matthew 6:33); they are the fruits of the Holy Spirit within you - love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness [or meekness], and self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). For true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth (John 4:23-4:24). Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, [truly temples of God], acceptable to God, which is your reasonable spiritual service of worship [a reasonably righteous life] (Romans 12:1; see 4:24 – Be careful what you listen to - Worship in spirit and truth for more about these scriptures and what true worship of God is).

So for Shavuot, thank and appreciate God for the many spiritual first fruits and fruits of the Spirit you have honored Him with in your walk by the ways of Christ. And if you feel lacking in them, then pray and ask for more fruits of the Spirit to grow in you and that you would produce more works of righteousness for others and for God. The struggles against sin, temptations, and the ways of living by the world can make your spiritual fruits hard to grow, so be determined and do not give up; strengthen yourselves to cultivate the fruits of the Spirit in you. Hold down and kill those urges and desires that oppose fruits of the Spirit, like impatience, anger, hate, spite, dishonesty, arrogance, obstinance, lust, and greed.

Be steadfast to make your lives reasonably righteous – a life acceptable by God – not a rigid, legalistically religious one full of false holiness (see 4:24 – Be careful what you listen to - Worship in spirit and truth for more about being reasonably righteous).

May your Shavuot be blessed and your fruits of righteousness in Christ be magnified in the name of Mashiach Yeshua. Amen.