No credentials, no institution, no agenda. Just someone reporting what he’s seen in Scripture — and an invitation to look for yourself.
I’m Lance Knoechel. I live in the Talladega National Forest in Alabama with my wife Mary. What follows is how I got here.
How I Got Here
I was raised Seventh Day Adventist, which gave me an early exposure to the seventh-day sabbathThe seventh day of the week, set apart for rest (Ex 20:8-11) — sunset Friday to sunset Saturday. Scripture also calls certain annual holy days "sabbaths," which is why "the day after the Sabbath" (Lev 23:11) can be read two ways and the Wave Sheaf's timing is debated. Synonyms: Shabbat. See also: Sabbatical year. See Where Does the Week Come From? More and to prophecy as meaningful. It also gave me an early skepticism toward unsubstantiated dogma — a skepticism the institution didn’t particularly welcome.
In my teens I walked away from all of it and made a thorough mess of things. Eventually the mess brought me back to looking seriously at Scripture — not as a churchThe English word "church" doesn't translate the Greek ekklesia — it derives from kyriakos, a pagan term for a building belonging to a lord. Ekklesia is a called-out, gathered people; the New Testament rarely leaves it bare but qualifies it — "the church of God" (whose it is, who called it) or "the church at Corinth" (which local gathering) — never a building. The Septuagint already used it for Israel's qahal, the congregation God called out and assembled (Acts 7:38). A spiritual organism, not an institution. Synonyms: ekklesia, ecclesia, called-out ones, assembly, congregation, kyriakos, qahal, edah.
See also: firstfruits. See A People, Not a Place More member but as someone with real questions and nowhere comfortable to take them.
Around 1984 I came across the Worldwide Church of God. What caught my attention was their understandingIn the New Testament this is synesis — a bringing-together: scattered pieces drawn into one cohesive whole, not a quantity of information accumulated. In plain terms it is connecting the dots — understanding is unification, not accumulation. Synonyms: synesis, unification, insight, discernment See The Importance of Understanding in Jesus Christ More of the feastsIn Leviticus 23, a feast is a designated period — not a single day but a span of time with its own structure and sequence. The Feast of Weeks spans seven weeks. The Feast of Tabernacles spans seven days. A feast may contain one or more annual holy days, but the feast itself is the full period, not any single day within it. Synonyms: festival, appointed time, moed. More and holy daysA specifically designated day within the Leviticus 23 feast calendar, distinct from the weekly sabbath. Annual holy days function as structural markers — points of demarcation that encapsulate the period preceding them and carry its meaning forward. Not merely a sacred calendar date but a hinge in the sequence of God's plan. Synonyms: appointed time, moed, sabbath, qadosh. More of Leviticus 23 — not as obsolete ceremonies but as a framework revealing the master design, structure, and sequence of God’s plan. I found that genuinely fascinating and still do. WCG also emphasized proving everything from the Bible, which suited me.
What WCG couldn’t sustain was the tension between “prove everything” and “trust the authority of the church.” The organization resolved that tension by abandoning the first. I couldn’t follow it there.
I joined the United Church of God when it formed in 1995. Better in some ways, stuck in the same place in others. The questions I brought to WCG I was still carrying when I left UCG — unanswered, and increasingly unwelcome.
What I Was Seeing
For years I would raise certain questions with people in the church and get a glazed look in return. I assumed we were all seeing the same thing. It took a long time to realize we weren’t.
What I was seeing — and couldn’t yet articulate — was that Scripture has a coherent symbol-system running beneath the surface text. The feasts of Leviticus 23 are its densest concentration — the place where physical symbols converge in a structured pattern that points, in advance, toward ChristNot a surname but a title: the Greek Christos, rendering the Hebrew Mashiach (Messiah) — "the Anointed." The anointing that set apart Israel's kings, priests, and prophets all converges on the one person it was pointing to. Synonyms: Messiah, Anointed, the Anointed One, Mashiach, Christos. See also: Logos More. Not as a theological claim to be argued but as something visible in the text once you know where to look.
The two lenses — Leviticus 23 and Christ — are not applied sequentially. They inform each other. Looking at the feasts through the lens of Christ, and at Christ through the lens of the feasts, produces a depth of perception that neither lens achieves alone. It is a genuinely spatial process — three-dimensional rather than flat. The symbol-system is what makes it navigable.
This is what MCYA exists to point at. Not to argue for, not to sell, not to build a following around. To point at clearly enough that the reader can look for themselves.
What This Site Is
Make Christ Your Aim is a body of writing built around that symbol-system and what it reveals. The feasts are the scaffolding. Christ is the subject. The writing is my attempt to point at what I’ve seen — as someone who has looked, not as someone who has mastered.
The intended reader is patient and willing to look. There are no quick conclusions here, no urgency, no pressure. If something resonates, look closer. If it doesn’t, no harm done.
Mary tells me I open up Scripture like she hasn’t seen anywhere else. I don’t say that to claim authority. I say it because it’s the closest external confirmation I have that what I’m trying to show is actually visible to someone else. That matters to a witness.