Tag: Are You In Need of Cleansing?

¹⁸ You shall keep the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, at the time appointed in the month Abib, for in the month Abib you came out from Egypt. ~ Exodus 34:18

The Israelites were not allowed to eat any bread with leaven in it during the Feast of Unleavened Bread. Matter-of-fact, no leaven was to be seen or found within their borders. They had to completely get rid of all of the leaven from their homes and out of their land. They were to celebrate the feast for seven days.

Now, as I mentioned before, leaven represents sin and it also represents false teaching. Therefore, this is a picture of God’s plan for Christians. Once we have accepted Jesus as LORD and Savior, we must remove the leaven from our lives. In other words, stop purposefully or willfully sinning.

Have you ever noticed some people who are in a desperate situation? The first thing they do is to turn to God and make all kinds of promises and all kinds of vows to God if He would only help them? They are in church every time the doors are open. They are praying and reading their Bibles and living like they have really taken the leaven out of their lives. When He does answer, and they are back on their feet again, they forget their promises and forget their vows. Church sees them less and less, and soon, they are right back where they were before the crisis. The leaven has been mixed into the batch again.

This is not how Jesus wants us to live. He wants us to take even the very appearance of leaven out of our lives. He wants us to seek Him. To seek holiness and chase after righteousness. He wants us to show love and mercy to our fellow citizens of the world, especially to our fellow Christians. This Passover/Feast of Unleavened Bread, let us make an effort to live like Jesus wants and expects us to live.

Heavenly Father, please forgive our lukewarm actions and help us to live wholly for You. Provide for our needs and give us the strength and the desire to live like You have called us to live and to love like You love; in Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²¹ Remember these things, O Jacob, and Israel, for you are my servant; I formed you; you are my servant; O Israel, you will not be forgotten by me. ²² I have blotted out your transgressions like a cloud and your sins like mist; return to me, for I have redeemed you. ~ Isaiah 44:21-22

Israel had forsaken the One True God and began to chase after worthless idols. Even though they had turned their backs on Him, God was still pleased to forgive, not willing to completely blot out their name from under heaven. He told them that they will not be forgotten by Him, but He will blot out their transgressions and their sins.

And it is the same with us, because God is a respecter of no persons. God loves everyone and treats everyone alike, and give each the same chances, which is really good for us. Because sometimes we mess up, sometimes we slip up, and sometimes we fall down. Sometimes, we even willingly wander far away from God, but He does not want us to stay gone. For He is compassionate and forgiving. He wants us to return to Him.

No one is too far away from God. You’re not too far away or done too much that He won’t forgive you. You are still called to what God has called you to. Just remember His Word in Isaiah 44:21-22 and insert your own name or the name of the one you’re praying for.

Return to God _____, He has not forgotten you. Return and have your sins forgiven and your transgressions blotted out.

Heavenly Father, forgive me, for I have transgressed. Teach me Your ways that I might walk in them. Remind me that I am Your child and that You love me unconditionally. Thank You for redeeming me. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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²³ For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our LORD. ~ Romans 6:23^NIV

The wages of sin is death, but God’s gift of eternal life is in Christ Jesus. What exactly does that mean? Have you ever heard the expression, “Pay the Piper?” Some people will say, “You have to pay the Piper if you want to dance.” Well, it is the same concept that Paul is teaching, only this is not figurative, this is for reals, and for keeps.

Sin, when dabbled in, demands payment when it is all over, and it only knows one currency, that is death. Nothing else will satisfy its payment demands.

Therefore, when we indulge in sin, we must pay with our own lives since the wages of sin is death.

But on the flip side, there is good news. Jesus has paid the demands of sins with His own death. Peter put it this way,

¹⁸ For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.

1 Peter 3:18^NIV

Through Jesus, the wages that sin demanded, is no longer a standing debt against us, and now He offers us a gift, free of all charges. All we have to do is say, “Yes, LORD, I accept Your free gift, Jesus,” and He will give it to us.

Have you accepted His free gift? Are you living for Him? If not, here is how. Repeat this prayer and mean it from your heart, and Jesus will come into you and give you His free gift of life.

Dear Heavenly Father, please forgive me of my sins. I am so sorry for offending You. Please help me now to live the rest of my life for You. I joyfully accept Your free gift of life. Thank You, Jesus, for dying on the cross in my place. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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¹⁴ Now it was the day of Preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, “Behold your King!” ¹⁵ They cried out, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him!” Pilate said to them, “Shall I crucify your King?” The chief priests answered, “We have no king but Caesar.” ¹⁶ So he delivered him over to them to be crucified. ~ John 19:14-16

It was the day of Preparation. The Passover was to start in about three hours. Pilate had cross-examined Jesus and found nothing to condemn Him for, especially capital punishment. He thought he would try one last attempt. He had Jesus flogged mercilessly, then he presented Him to the Jews and said, “Behold your King.”

He thought that would prick their hearts to see Jesus so pitiful, and being their King, surely, they would have pity on Him and change their minds. But instead, they hardened their hearts and cried out, “We have no king but Caesar.” So, Pilate delivered Jesus over to them to be crucified.

Today, you are being presented with that same statement, “Behold your King.”

Will you accept Him as King? Will you continue to accept Him when the flow is against Him? The majority are yelling out, “Away with Him. We do not want or need this man.” Will you be caught up in the heat of the moment? Or will you stand out like a very sore thumb—a twinkling light in a sea of darkness?

Jesus died so that you might live. He took your sin and my sin, and all the sin of the world that whosoever will, can come and receive mercy. Jesus is coming back to get those who are waiting for Him. Those who are not crying out, “Away with Him.” So, again, the Holy Spirit is saying, “Behold your King.” Because it is one of the Spirit’s jobs to remind us about Jesus. Therefore, make sure that you are not with the crowd crying out away with Him but with the few who are saying, “I receive You, dear LORD, and I accept Your sacrifice on my behalf.”

Dear Heavenly Father, please help each and every one of us who are clinging to You to go against the grain. To go against the crowd and to swim upstream against the flow. Help us to live for You, and to speak out for You, and tell others of Your great love. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁶ Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? ⁷ Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. ⁸ Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. ~ 1 Corinthians 5:6-8

The NIV says, “Get rid of the old yeast.” In Scripture, yeast, or leaven, represents sin. In this passage, Paul is dealing with sexual immorality in the church there at Corinth. One of their members has taken his father’s wife as his own wife. Therefore, Paul instructs them to get rid of the yeast. Get the sin out of their midst because if they do not, it will infect the whole church, one by one, and soon, the whole batch will be infected with sin.

If you think about it, that is basically what is happening in the church today. We tolerate the leaven in our church because the person is a celebrity or they are a good tithe payer, and we don’t want to upset them. Or the church simply bows to the political pressures of society, ignoring God’s commands to us. But that is not Paul’s instruction to the Corinthian church. He told them straight up, get rid of the yeast that is in your presence, or it will infect your whole church.

It is the same thing that God instructed the Israelites before they entered the Promised Land. Get rid of the sin in the land. Smash their sacred altars. Breakdown their Asherah Poles. Destroy anything that is used for idol worship. If you do not get rid of all of that, it will be a snare to you. They will be like briers in your eyes. Because a little leaven leavens the whole batch.

It is the same with the new Christian. God does not expect you to get saved and then change overnight, but He does expect you to seek holiness, without which no man shall see God. That means you don’t keep making the same mistakes you made last year or even last month. You don’t use grace as an excuse for your own slackness. God understands, or I know I’m not living the way I’m supposed to, but thank God for Grace. No, God wants you to mature because His Son suffered and died so you can live a higher life.

Paul puts it this way: Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed; therefore, let us get rid of all the yeast, which represents sin, out of our lives so that we can pursue holiness. So, this Easter, make it a point to get rid of the yeast of malice and evil out of your life. Get rid of quick-temperedness, course joking, slack-talking, cussing, watching things Christians have no business watching, and whatever else that prevents your spiritual growth.

Father, help me to live the things I believe, to practice what I preach, and to be an example to those who watch. Help me to let my light so shine that others may see my good works and glorify You. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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³⁷ If one of their carcasses falls on any seed that is to be sown, it is clean; ³⁸ but if water has been put on the seed and one of their carcasses falls on it, it is unclean for you. ~ Leviticus 11:37-38^CSB

The LORD gave many laws and statutes to Aaron and Moses to tell the people. These laws were a shadow of things to come. God said that if a dead carcass of one of the unclean lizards falls on any of the seed that is to be sown, the seed will remain clean, but if it’s been watered, it has become unclean. Why is that?

In the parable of the Sower, Jesus explained that the Word of God is the seed, and the different types of fields receiving the seed are four different types of hearts. See, the Word of God cannot be polluted by false doctrine, misinterpretation, and twisting of Scripture unless someone hears it and accepts it. The seed must first be planted and watered in order to corrupt the seed because our words can affect whether the seed grows into a good fruit-bearing tree or a bad fruit tree.

The Word of God is powerful and is not subject to anyone’s sole interpretation. There is only God’s interpretation. So when you hear the Word of God preached or taught, you have to weigh it against what the Word of God says, lest you believe false truths and your watered seed becomes unclean.

Dear LORD, please open my eyes and ears to Your Truth and Your Truth alone. Fill me with a spirit of discernment so that I might not be tripped up by false doctrine and false interpretations. Help me to be like the Bereans who searched the Word of God to see if what Paul said was true. Teach me to see the Truth, LORD, so that I might never accept or teach anything false. In Jesus’ name, I pray, amen.

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⁶ You are not to come near any close relative for sexual intercourse; I am the Lord. ⁷ You are not to violate the intimacy that belongs to your father and mother. She is your mother; you must not have sexual intercourse with her. ~ Leviticus 18:6-7

Have you ever read the book of Leviticus and just thought to yourself, “Why did God even need to address this? This is just common sense.” That’s how I felt about these verses, and then I felt like God brought to my mind the warnings on bleach bottles and other poisonous liquids. These are common-sense rules, but there are always those who will misuse the product and then try to sue the company for their own idiocy. The same is true with the Law.

God gave us laws and commands not because we’re stupid or lack common sense but because the more we give into darkness, the more our vision is perverted, and the more we give into our own fleshly desires. Imagine if God didn’t give us any commands or laws but expected us to follow them. On Judgment Day, would we not be able to say, “But I didn’t know it was a sin.” Therefore, the LORD addresses the black-and-white areas plainly and clearly so that there’s no room for grey to appear.

So, what are we to do? We get rid of grey, and we stick to the original outline. We don’t give into our flesh, but we crucify it. We don’t quench the Spirit; we feed it. We don’t blur the lines between right and wrong; we call sin sin. We stop making excuses for our sin, and we strive for holiness.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Avoid The Perverse.

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