The Israelite slaves were released from Pharaoh and their leaven was deflated before they were truly free. Humanity is healed from world pandemics through humility, prayer, and repentance. Broken relationships require repentance before reconciliation is reached. Let’s compare these three realities and see if we can find a theme that will strengthen our faith and give us hope during this Passover festival.
Preparing for Passover is an arduous task! All the chametz (leavened foods) must be purged from our houses. Every crack and crevice must be inspected to make sure that no leavened crumb remains. As we clean, we remember that leaven represents sin and specifically correlates to puffed up, selfish pride. In order to find true freedom, fulfillment, and peace we must meticulously identify the areas of our life where our ego has crowned itself king, dethrone ourselves, and submit to God. Freedom comes after the purging.
Fighting a pandemic is a very difficult and dangerous challenge! As we have seen over the past year, world leaders have been in constant turmoil, trying to find solutions that will bring healing and peace. The Scriptures give a clear remedy! 2 Chronicles 7:14 says, “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.” In order to find healing we must humble ourselves (remove the leaven), seek God (accept His ways as truth) and repent (turn from the sin that we had accepted as truth). Healing comes after we turn to God.
Whether it’s because we could not see someone we love or because we are with certain loved ones all the time, the coronavirus has forced us to evaluate our relationships. This year I’m asking myself, in what areas has some leaven gotten into my relationships? May God give us all the strength to identify and purge the leaven so that we can have that good and pleasant unity of the brethren. It takes a lot of gumption to reconcile a relational meltdown. Reconciliation comes after repentance.
Do you see the pattern here? It is a lot of work to reach success! I would add one more element to the pattern. Difficult situations like slavery, pandemics, and relational breakdown, give us the strength to take action (purge, turn, and repent) and find success (freedom, healing, and reconciliation). Slavery came before the Red Sea crossing and God’s appearance at Sinai! Yeshua was crucified before he rose from the dead! Some of the greatest hardships of all time came directly before the most incredible occurrences in world history.
You may be discouraged by the difficult situations we face in our world today. There are many unknowns and opportunities for fear to creep in. I encourage you, do not look at the slavery, the coronavirus, relational the breakdown or whatever difficult thing you are being confronted with in your life as the end all. Do not lose hope! See those real difficulties as the beginning. They are the birthpains God is using to bring forth His will into this earth. Allow them to propel you into action!
I am certainly not a prophet, so I’m not going to predict what good things will come after this global pandemic, but I do sense that God has allowed these global hardships to happen in order to give birth to an equally massive, international, great, and awesome move of God.
This Passover, I will do my part and burn as much leaven as I can identify while I wait to see God set the captives free, split the Red Seas, and come down to His holy mountain. If we all join in, doing our part, who knows, God may be aroused from His holy habitation and we may see His glory manifested like never before. I believe it will happen and that it can happen now if we purge the leaven.
Committed to action with great anticipation,
Zac
