In Exodus 12:14-20, the children of Israel are given instructions for the Feast of Unleavened Bread. They were to clean their houses and throw out ALL leaven, not one bit was to be left. Verse 15 gives us a clue as to the seriousness of this observance: “Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.”
At first glance that may seem like a harsh punishment for sin, but sin separates us from God. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. They were in bondage to a culture that worshipped the sun god Ra. They were enslaved to build pyramids which were tombs! They looked at death every day. Do you think their worship of Elohim, the Almighty God remained pure? It was corrupted, there was not a personal relationship with the living God. They may have still observed some of the rituals, but that’s all they were. And even though they complained about their circumstances, they had lost hope that anything would ever change.
Whenever we think of leaven in the scriptures we associate it with sin. Leaven is yeast and, as the scriptures confirm, a little leaven will leaven the whole lump of dough. (I Corinthians 5:6) That seems like a very simple illustration but the application is life changing. Think about it, can you “sin just a little” without it making an impact? What happens if we tell a little “white lie”? Even if our intention is to not hurt someone, the lie grows and continues to cover up what was originally said. In other words, the darkness now has more control than the light in our lives. It puts us in bondage. The leaven continues to grow because once it has found a place to rest, it contaminates the whole. (And, as a side note, there is no such thing as a little white lie, a lie is a lie, there are no degrees of sin.)
However, as we take into consideration the whole of the scriptures of their enslavement, this feast was about more than sin, it was about corruption. When leaven is added to flour and water, the dough gets “puffed up”; this puffing up signifies corruption. Sin corrupts, it destroys, it poisons, it distorts, it changes what was into something else.
God created man for a relationship. He alone made a covenant with man to be in relationship with Him. He is very serious about that relationship. The Israelites no longer had a relationship with God. They knew of Him, may still have observed some of the rituals, that which was once alive, was now dead.
God gave Moses specific instructions on how to kill the “Passover Lamb” so the angel of death would pass over the homes that had the blood from that lamb on the door posts. They obeyed because they wanted their circumstances to change. They followed every instruction they were given for their departure. For the first time in 400 years they had hope of a new life.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was God’s way of telling the Israelites they were to leave behind every area of corruption in their lives that they learned in Egypt. The feast was about leaving behind death and signified new life. They were being sanctified, cleansed and set apart, for a new life in a new land.
God doesn’t do anything in our lives without laying a foundation and giving us a witness that He is at work. God had just spent considerable time displaying His faithfulness and love for them with plagues that brought great destruction upon the Egyptians but didn’t touch the Israelites. There were two distinct foundations being laid during this time. One was the truth that the Lord God Almighty, Elohim, was the only God. This declaration was for both the Egyptians and the Israelites. But for the Israelites, these acts were also to build their faith of the greatness of their God and to bring them into a relationship. These miracles were to remind them of the past, of His great power and strength and to bring remembrance that He was faithful and they could trust Him, they could lean on Him for direction and provision.
Isn’t that the same that God has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ? Yet, how often we don’t even consider Him in our everyday lives. We lean on our own understanding, we don’t look to Christ for direction for our lives, we seek our own financial way and wonder why we aren’t being blessed. We fill our hours with TV and movies that portray killing, evil, sex, vulgarity, drugs, drinking, etc. We look for “easy” ways to get rich. We are slaves to a culture that is not morally sound. We are building on shifting sand. This is not the desire of the Lord God Almighty for His children! This is the bondage of Satan.
In the first covenant, God sent Moses to be the leader to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land, the land of milk and honey. A land that was fruitful. A land that God would bless the work of their hands. A land where they would see reflected the blessings of heaven and give thanks for His goodness and provision. It was to be a new birth, a new life, where they would walk according to the statutes and ordinances of God.
Today, God has already given us the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ whose sacrifice already has won the victory over slavery. Therefore, like the children of Israel we have a choice to accept His covenant or stay in bondage. The Israelites refused to transition to a new way of thinking and living.
If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, have you allowed Him to give you a new mind and a new heart? In Ezekiel 36:26, the Lord tells us, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
God is calling us to Himself. He is calling a people to imitate His Son Jesus Christ. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;“ (Ephesians 5:1). To lay down their lives as a living sacrifice. We were slaves to the corruption in our souls before our salvation, After our salvation we are to be slaves of Jesus Christ. To shine in the darkness and reveal the deeds of darkness and bring the lost to the light of Jesus Christ!
Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24-27: Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.” (NASB)
King David, a man after God’s own heart, shared his revelation of the way to become transformed to walk out that verse by the power of the Holy Spirit.
At first glance that may seem like a harsh punishment for sin, but sin separates us from God. The Israelites had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. They were in bondage to a culture that worshipped the sun god Ra. They were enslaved to build pyramids which were tombs! They looked at death every day. Do you think their worship of Elohim, the Almighty God remained pure? It was corrupted, there was not a personal relationship with the living God. They may have still observed some of the rituals, but that’s all they were. And even though they complained about their circumstances, they had lost hope that anything would ever change.
Whenever we think of leaven in the scriptures we associate it with sin. Leaven is yeast and, as the scriptures confirm, a little leaven will leaven the whole lump of dough. (I Corinthians 5:6) That seems like a very simple illustration but the application is life changing. Think about it, can you “sin just a little” without it making an impact? What happens if we tell a little “white lie”? Even if our intention is to not hurt someone, the lie grows and continues to cover up what was originally said. In other words, the darkness now has more control than the light in our lives. It puts us in bondage. The leaven continues to grow because once it has found a place to rest, it contaminates the whole. (And, as a side note, there is no such thing as a little white lie, a lie is a lie, there are no degrees of sin.)
However, as we take into consideration the whole of the scriptures of their enslavement, this feast was about more than sin, it was about corruption. When leaven is added to flour and water, the dough gets “puffed up”; this puffing up signifies corruption. Sin corrupts, it destroys, it poisons, it distorts, it changes what was into something else.
God created man for a relationship. He alone made a covenant with man to be in relationship with Him. He is very serious about that relationship. The Israelites no longer had a relationship with God. They knew of Him, may still have observed some of the rituals, that which was once alive, was now dead.
God gave Moses specific instructions on how to kill the “Passover Lamb” so the angel of death would pass over the homes that had the blood from that lamb on the door posts. They obeyed because they wanted their circumstances to change. They followed every instruction they were given for their departure. For the first time in 400 years they had hope of a new life.
The Feast of Unleavened Bread was God’s way of telling the Israelites they were to leave behind every area of corruption in their lives that they learned in Egypt. The feast was about leaving behind death and signified new life. They were being sanctified, cleansed and set apart, for a new life in a new land.
God doesn’t do anything in our lives without laying a foundation and giving us a witness that He is at work. God had just spent considerable time displaying His faithfulness and love for them with plagues that brought great destruction upon the Egyptians but didn’t touch the Israelites. There were two distinct foundations being laid during this time. One was the truth that the Lord God Almighty, Elohim, was the only God. This declaration was for both the Egyptians and the Israelites. But for the Israelites, these acts were also to build their faith of the greatness of their God and to bring them into a relationship. These miracles were to remind them of the past, of His great power and strength and to bring remembrance that He was faithful and they could trust Him, they could lean on Him for direction and provision.
Isn’t that the same that God has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ? Yet, how often we don’t even consider Him in our everyday lives. We lean on our own understanding, we don’t look to Christ for direction for our lives, we seek our own financial way and wonder why we aren’t being blessed. We fill our hours with TV and movies that portray killing, evil, sex, vulgarity, drugs, drinking, etc. We look for “easy” ways to get rich. We are slaves to a culture that is not morally sound. We are building on shifting sand. This is not the desire of the Lord God Almighty for His children! This is the bondage of Satan.
In the first covenant, God sent Moses to be the leader to lead the Israelites out of Egypt to the promised land, the land of milk and honey. A land that was fruitful. A land that God would bless the work of their hands. A land where they would see reflected the blessings of heaven and give thanks for His goodness and provision. It was to be a new birth, a new life, where they would walk according to the statutes and ordinances of God.
Today, God has already given us the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ whose sacrifice already has won the victory over slavery. Therefore, like the children of Israel we have a choice to accept His covenant or stay in bondage. The Israelites refused to transition to a new way of thinking and living.
If you have accepted Jesus Christ as your savior, have you allowed Him to give you a new mind and a new heart? In Ezekiel 36:26, the Lord tells us, "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
God is calling us to Himself. He is calling a people to imitate His Son Jesus Christ. “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children;“ (Ephesians 5:1). To lay down their lives as a living sacrifice. We were slaves to the corruption in our souls before our salvation, After our salvation we are to be slaves of Jesus Christ. To shine in the darkness and reveal the deeds of darkness and bring the lost to the light of Jesus Christ!
Listen to the words of Jesus in Matthew 16:24-27: Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.” “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?” “For the Son of Man is going to come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and WILL THEN REPAY EVERY MAN ACCORDING TO HIS DEEDS.” (NASB)
King David, a man after God’s own heart, shared his revelation of the way to become transformed to walk out that verse by the power of the Holy Spirit.
One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek:
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD
And to meditate in His temple. (Psalm 27:4)
That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
To behold the beauty of the LORD
And to meditate in His temple. (Psalm 27:4)
These last two verses are my heart’s desire. I have to admit, some days are easier than others to achieve them. But whenever I am faced with a challenging situation and I can feel my insides churning and all I want to do is turn away and not face the situation, when I stop and take a moment to turn my focus to Christ (and off of myself) I am able to hear Him speak to my heart and give direction and to stand. I Corinthians 10:12-14 tells us, “Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed that he does not fall. No temptation has overtaken you but such as is common to man; and God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will provide the way of escape also, so that you will be able to endure it. Therefore, my beloved, flee from idolatry.”
I believe we often mistake that the word “temptation” in verse 13 signifies not only attempts by the enemy, or people that we even know, to entice us to do something that we know is not what Christ would have us choose; but it is also trials, situations, life that we counter and often think that we do not have a choice as to how to respond.
I may not see clearly at that exact moment of whether or not it is a trial or temptation that the enemy is attacking me, or if it is something that God is allowing to refine me. It may even be something that God has deliberately laid before me to test me. That is not a popular teaching in today’s churches, but if we truly believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore, (Hebrews 13:8), we need to allow God to reveal the source of our circumstances, why we are in the circumstance, what we are to learn in this situation, and how He is going to redeem both the situation and us so that He receives the glory!
My prayer is that you, too, will embrace His cross and follow Him no matter where it may lead you. He will never leave you or forsake you. “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU”, so that we confidently say,“THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
Dear Abba, I am overwhelmed this morning as I hear Your deep love for me. I know that the only thing I deserve is death, yet You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to die in my place that I might have life eternal and become an heir to Your kingdom. How could I not fall on my knees and worship You? How could I not love You and obey Your desires for me? How could I ever think that I know what is best for me? Forgive me Lord for my arrogance. All I want is You. I wait in Your presence to embrace the beauty of Your holiness. I love You so much, here I am, send me! Amen.
I believe we often mistake that the word “temptation” in verse 13 signifies not only attempts by the enemy, or people that we even know, to entice us to do something that we know is not what Christ would have us choose; but it is also trials, situations, life that we counter and often think that we do not have a choice as to how to respond.
I may not see clearly at that exact moment of whether or not it is a trial or temptation that the enemy is attacking me, or if it is something that God is allowing to refine me. It may even be something that God has deliberately laid before me to test me. That is not a popular teaching in today’s churches, but if we truly believe that God is the same yesterday, today and forevermore, (Hebrews 13:8), we need to allow God to reveal the source of our circumstances, why we are in the circumstance, what we are to learn in this situation, and how He is going to redeem both the situation and us so that He receives the glory!
My prayer is that you, too, will embrace His cross and follow Him no matter where it may lead you. He will never leave you or forsake you. “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money, being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU”, so that we confidently say,“THE LORD IS MY HELPER, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID. WHAT WILL MAN DO TO ME?” (Hebrews 13:5-6)
Dear Abba, I am overwhelmed this morning as I hear Your deep love for me. I know that the only thing I deserve is death, yet You sent Your Son Jesus Christ to die in my place that I might have life eternal and become an heir to Your kingdom. How could I not fall on my knees and worship You? How could I not love You and obey Your desires for me? How could I ever think that I know what is best for me? Forgive me Lord for my arrogance. All I want is You. I wait in Your presence to embrace the beauty of Your holiness. I love You so much, here I am, send me! Amen.
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