DAYS OF UNLEAVENED BREAD—CHRIST’S ROLE IN BELIEVERS’ LIVES
Second of eight devotions in What God’s Festivals Teach series
1 Corinthians 5:7: “Get rid of the old yeast that you may be a new batch without yeast—as you really are. For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.”
The Days of Unleavened Bread (April 11-17, 2017) is not old-fashioned. Even today, this feast teaches a powerful lesson about Jesus—the savior of all people. However, the days of unleavened bread are a great memorial for the Hebrew people.
The last thing they did the morning after every Egyptian household mourned their firstborn, was to bake cakes from dough mixed without yeast. From the opening Scripture, the lesson is for Believers-in-Christ to rid our lives of sin. Jesus died as payment for forgiveness of our sin.
Apostle Paul’s sermon to the Church in Corinth was to not allow sin in our lives. Eating flat bread reminds us to take in Jesus every day, crowning Him king of our lives. For Jesus explains in John 6:27a, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”
Each person longs to fill a built-in spiritual vacuum. Jesus is the divine bread from heaven that satisfies spiritual hunger, as He explains in John 6:35, and 51: “He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and him who believes in Me will never thirst. … I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. This bread is My flesh, which I give for the life of the world.”
As the focus of this feast, Jesus cleanses every Believer from all sin and helps us to live sin-free. Paul shows how to live in new life in Galatians 2:20: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me.”
Take Home Nugget
Paul urged the brethren to keep this feast that follows Passover “with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:8). Linking together the New and the Old Testaments of the Bible, Christ reunites His followers coming before the Father spiritually “unleavened” or sin-free.
Jesus was buried for the first three days of this feast. He was raised back to life in the middle of this feast to show the importance of His supremacy in our lives.
Holy Father, may Jesus’ sacrifice bury my sins—my old self—deep. May I rise daily a new person clothed in Jesus’ righteousness! I pray this in Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Adapted from God’s Holy Day Plan, The Promise of Hope for All Mankind. ©1966, 1998, 2001, 2010, 2013 by the United Church of Christ. Ohio. Pgs. 53-54.
MAY YOUR GOOD FRIDAY MOURNING TURN TO JOY EASTER MORNING!
J.D. Griffith
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My background is a life time of worship, but seriously following Jesus came with age. Spiritual maturity is a leap of faith. Sometimes we don’t know what we’re missing until living on the edge of God’s leading. My life of self sufficiency ended abruptly when losing my job as an analytical chemist after being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Now living on the edge of God’s leading has become a way of life that I wouldn’t trade for anything else.
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