Exodus 12: 15-28
For seven days you are to eat bread made without yeast. On the first day
remove the yeast from your houses, for whoever eats anything with yeast in it
from the first day through the seventh must be cut off from Israel. On the
first day hold a sacred assembly, and another one on the seventh day. Do no
work at all on these days, except to prepare food for everyone to eat; that is
all you may do. “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on
this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt. Celebrate this day as
a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. In the first month you are to
eat bread made without yeast, from the evening of the fourteenth day until the
evening of the twenty-first day. For seven days no yeast is to be found in your
houses. And anyone, whether foreigner or native-born, who eats anything with
yeast in it must be cut off from the community of Israel. Eat nothing made with
yeast. Wherever you live, you must eat unleavened bread.” Then Moses summoned
all the elders of Israel and said to them, “Go at once and select the animals
for your families and slaughter the Passover lamb. Take a bunch of hyssop, dip it into the blood
in the basin and put some of the blood on the top and on both sides of the
doorframe. None of you shall go out of the door of your house until morning. When the LORD goes through the land to strike
down the Egyptians, he will see the blood on the top and sides of the doorframe
and will pass over that doorway, and he will not permit the destroyer to enter
your houses and strike you down. “Obey these instructions as a lasting ordinance
for you and your descendants. When you
enter the land that the LORD will give you as he promised, observe this
ceremony. And when your children ask you, ‘What does this ceremony mean to
you?’ then tell them, ‘It is the
Passover sacrifice to the LORD, who passed over the houses of the Israelites in
Egypt and spared our homes when he struck down the Egyptians.’ ” Then the
people bowed down and worshiped. The
Israelites did just what the LORD commanded Moses and Aaron.
Message:
When I first read this I could not understand why God would prohibit
people from eating leavened bread. What’s with the yeast? I thought. Thus, I read
further and found an explanation "Do not eat it with bread made with
yeast, but for seven days eat unleavened bread, the bread of affliction,
because you left Egypt in haste—so that all the days of your life you
may remember the time of your departure from Egypt" (Deuteronomy
16:3). Hence, I surmised that God as my deliverer wants me to remember the day
of my deliverance. This I can relate to remembering my spiritual birthday
January 2, 2008 the time when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior. That
acceptance was my day of deliverance from unbelief and sinfulness. Unlike the
Israelites I was not made to eat unleavened bread that night in the Aldersgate but
I remember it because I found incomparable satisfaction and peace henceforth.
Application:
I will never forget my spiritual birthday and I will devote time in
causing others achieve theirs.
Prayer:
Dear Lord, I thank you for letting me be born again, for making me
realize what’s it like to be a real CHRISTIAN. God, I underwent trials and
still undergoing those even after I accepted You. However, as I have attained
understanding of your objectives in letting me experience those, I learned to
deal with them positively and eventually have become dependent on You. Lord,
now I know it’s my deliverance that enable me to experience Your blessings and
promises. I pray for spiritual strength Lord
as I go on living my faith and sharing it to others. This I pray in Jesus’
name, amen.
