Lessons From The Shofar By Luz Cintrón July 23, 2002 Web Site:http://www.thepearlsofwisdom.net

 
 
 
 
 

This week I got myself a shofar. The Lord had spoke to me about it since December and I finally got it. Then there was the problem: How would I learn? Who would teach me? Well, He had thought about it too, and a few ago I was invited to take part of a group called Prophetic Interactions. So I went to them and they helped me giving me instructions on how to play thee shofar.

A sister from the group told me that the shofar was a weapon. Wow! Was she right or what?
Later on I wrote them thanking them for the help and here is what I shared with them, for I feel it  was a lesson from the shofar that could very well help  us all.

You are right about the shofar being a weapon. It got me. You know the peculiar smell it has. Well it was not easy to put that to my mouth but the desire to play it was more powerful than the smell. I played it last night and today when I return from church. The Lord spoke to me through the smell, He said that is the smell of decaying flesh, that is also how He perceives the smell of man's flesh. You know the Holy place where He was ministered was enveloped in a cloud of frank incense. I understand Him now. To think that our flesh, our decaying flesh smells unto Him like that, I understood that the desire to touch man comes from a very deep and strong love to overcome the offense of our flesh (as in carnality) to embrace us.

When I was at church I kind of got offended, well offense is too big a word because it was nothing serious or hurtful. I just did not like it. Then I did something I never do, I voice it. I was on my way out and alone and just voiced my discontentment with the person involved. When I came home to practice, the shofar would not make any sound at all. Back to the starting line. Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me by pictures. A trumpet of alarm, blown by the Spirit (breath of God in us) = Holy.
 

I understood that if I wanted to be with Him in doing this I must submit my very breath, even in words spoken "alone". He convicted me for receiving an accusation and voicing a complaint. In a way it was like a judgment. He said I could not sound in both camps that I must choose only one.

I confessed and repented. The shofar sounded. Well at this stage it only makes a noise, but I am happy and blessed.

When God created man, He breathed on his nostril to make him a living soul. Breath is Spirit in this picture. He gave us life from His life. It is breath which sounds the shofar, the very breath He put in us that goes through our flesh (the shofar filled with decaying flesh and its reality under His nostril) submitted and yielded unto death to Him. What He does with it! He is who comes out the other side of death. As He become a treasure in earthen vessels through our yielding to Himm in trust, we become in His hand a weapon that can be used by Him  to pull down the enemy’ strongholds (just like the shofar and the walls of Jericho). That is what we are and who He is, together in one single picture. The life of God sprouting through the death of man, for it is necessary for us to decrease so that He may increase in us. The smell of putrefactive flesh in the chosen vessel to release His glory into the physical realm, the shofar is the perfect picture of the way He sees things, the way He had order them to be. The shofar seems to me a declaration of God's delivering Truth, unrelenting love and faithful promise to us before the universe each time it is blown.

In the shofar man website (www.theshofarman.com)I visited today I found that the shofar should be bigger rather than smaller. The bigger it is, the easier it is to learn to play it. Mine is a Yemenite size small. What is He saying? I got a lot of work to do, to learn to be His alarm in His hand. I will have to go and learn the hard way because of things still unbridled in my flesh. I will, with His help learn then I shall be free to sound. First, in the small (hard to die)  things until we are delivered and our spirit released to obey and follow Him. A daily exercise. First comes  the humbling latter the glory. For glory and flesh do not mix and He will not allow it for our own sake.

I took my shofar and washed it good after practice trying to get some of the smell out.. But I know better than that. Each time I smell that, even when it has faded after the washing, I will remember His love and mercy. Lord help me to die each day so You can live through me and do Your purpose.
 
 

Your servant in His love;

Luz Cintrón
Let us be glad and rejoice,
and give honour to Him: for
the marriage of the Lamb is come
and His wife hath made herself ready
...Revelation 19:7.