OCTOBER
THURSDAY 1st
Leviticus 25:8-17
NIV (v10) – ‘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.’
ESV (v10) – ‘And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan.’
I remember the words of a song we used to sing many years ago, ‘This is the year of jubilee, this is the year of jubilee, when all the captives are set free, come ye halt, ye blind, and lame, sing and shout for joy again, this is the year of Jubilee.’
Then there is this another by Ron Kenoly:
This is the season of Jubilee (echo)
Singing and dancing for you and me (echo)
Thanking and praising because we’re free (echo)
Oh this is the year of Jubilee (echo)
Put your hands together
Everybody praise the Lord
Put your hands together
Sing and shout and praise the Lord
Everything that was stolen shall be returned unto me
Mother father sister brother they will all go free
Everything that was stolen shall be returned unto me
Singing dancing praising shouting increase and victory
The year of Jubilee was established by the LORD himself to enable the people of Israel who had become slaves or bond servants to be liberated, during that year they were able to return to their own families and their family property. It happened every fifty years, and the years in between each jubilee governed the amount for which a property would be purchased or sold for. It was a year that spoke of freedom therefore it was year that would have been looked forward too with great anticipation and once arrived filled with great thanksgiving, joy and celebration.
The wonder of the Cross is that we do not have to wait every fifty years for captives to be set free, but it is possible 24/7, it also means there is no pricing structure based on the intervening years between each fifty, regarding the home being prepared for us, but rather at Calvary the whole cost has been met in full, Jesus paid it all, all to him I owe, sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow, and just as the released slaves would have celebrated in the year of Jubilee, so we who have been set free at Calvary celebrate with songs of joy and victory. But our song is an everlasting song, the freedom we have received is an eternal freedom, the Psalmist said, ‘. . . you have put a new song on my lips, even a hymn of praise to our God.’ Another song that did the rounds was ‘My shackles are gone’, as you are reading this devotion have you been set free, have you had your jubilee by coming to the Cross and receiving a full and complete redemption? Have you known the shackles of sin to be broken, have you known what it is to be set free?
Finally, in the year of jubilee, the freed slaves from among the people of Israel were allowed to return to family, at the Cross, our place of jubilee, we are reconciled to our Heavenly Father.
My shackles are gone
My spirit is free
Oh praise the Lord,
He lifted me,
My sins are forgiven
And now I am free
Oh praise the Lord, my shackles are gone
My spirit is free