February 7, 2019
Leviticus 25:10
Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
New International Version (NIV)
                 With a land plat map from 1735 and an iPad I looked for the land.  Supposedly our ancestors owned land in Amelia County Virginia in 1735.  I found a map locating the land but the road system now is different.  The streams, however, are still there.  So I lined up a stream, parked my car and walked into the woods.  Melanie later asked me, “Weren’t you afraid of trespassing.”  “Technically, it was ours before it was theirs,” I responded in jest.

                In the ancient world like our world land was bought and sold.  Ancestral lands changed hands even between tribes.  God’s answer to indentured servitude and land exchanges was a fifty year cycle.  After a Sabbath of Sabbath years, on the fiftieth year, land was to be restored to the original owners.  Slaves were to be set free.  Debts were to be cancelled.  Imagine the jubilation for the slaves and disenfranchised.

                As far as we know, Israel did not practice this good law regularly.  Some say the Israelites never actually celebrated the Jubilee year at all.  Why not?  Actually giving up land and letting slaves go free would probably have been difficult.  But when Jesus came and preached in Nazareth and pronounced liberty to the captives, he fulfilled the Jubilee.  Jesus came to set us free from our slavery to sin.  He came to fulfill all of God’s good promises. 

                Now that we are free, shouldn’t we live in freedom?  We should.  This gift is from God.  Do not fail to receive it.  You whom the Son has set free are free indeed.  Live in liberty as daughters and sons of God.
Pray with me:    
Father, you know the sins that entangle and enslave us.  Deliver us from the deception of the enemy.  Remind us again of our liberty in Christ.  Let us not succumb to legalism or licentiousness.  Let us live with the gratitude appropriate to those who have been set free.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen.        
This year our Every Day with Jesus readings will follow The Bible Project Read Scripture Plan.  Copies of this reading plan are available at Tallowood Baptist Church, or download 
the app at readscripture.org.  Read through the Bible with us in 2019!
Joyfully, 
Duane 
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