Bibledoorajar: What Were We Thinking?

     After the Israelites made their escape there were second thoughts on the part of the Egyptians. What in the world were they thinking! Now they had lost access to their longtime slaves.  Emboldened by God to give chase, Pharoah made ready to get the slaves back. Neither the Israelites nor the Egyptians knew what lay before them. The Israelites had taken care to follow all directions. Their feet were shod with shoes and their staffs were in their hand. They had also remembered Joseph's request that he had made in faith---that his bones would also go with them to the Promised Land. Now God had ensured that the leadership remember this request after over 400 years! Let the pilgrimage begin. The pilgrims, leaning on their staffs, set out to go through country they had never seen before. But none of it was to be their permanent dwelling. They were to keep walking toward the Promised Land.
     Christians are often reminded that this world is not our home. It is the rod and staff of God that comfort us as we pilgrimage toward our permanent dwelling. The Word is a great comfort to us on the way. We encourage each other to keep walking. What we may walk through looks (and is) hopeless but by faith we keep moving on. Along the way God places in our paths things and events that buoy our hope to keep walking.
     We learn in Deuteronomy that the whole time the Israelites were walking their shoes and clothing never wore out. This was God's assurance that they could keep walking. There in their houses they had applied the blood to their doorposts with hyssop and waited til morning to start their journey. We, too, have applied the blood of Christ symbolically to our lives and have started our journey. Like our Israelite brothers our walk began with our purchase by the l(L)amb. The apostle Paul challenges us not to quit but to finish just as Moses encouraged the Israelites. There is supernatural help to do so because, after all, "there is power, power, precious power in the blood of the Lamb."

Bibledoorajar: What Does It All Mean?

     As the children of Israel grabbed their unleavened bread, herded their flocks and gathered their families to move out, they were told to continue having the Feast of Passover. And when the Feast provoked questions  among their children as to its' meaning they were asked to always explain the meaning to them. Thus, going out from the completion of the Feast, Israelites had an assurance about their righteous God who intervened in their need and saved and redeemed them for His own. That was the path that they and their children were to walk in. It would be assuring and a confidence builder in their God who loved them and provided for them in their need. It was something they would know and on which their hope would anchor.

     Yesterday in worship the preacher alluded to the confidence and lack of fear we should have as we go forth having shared the fellowship of the Lord's Supper. He alluded to Phillipians 2:1 ff. in which the Apostle Paul challenged Christians to quantify in their own minds the confidence they had placed in the Son of God. That quantification wiould lead to a given mindset that wiould govern their lives in their families and communities. A righteous God had provided for their need. He had and He would. Share the thought as oft as you meet around the table, Paul said. Examine yourself. Is your quantification of what you have in Christ leading you to a similar mindset as His? Are you telling your children of the importance of that mental exercise? Do you continue to value the Feast Divine?
Reread Phillipians 2: 1ff. this week and praise God for His every provision in Christ.  As you serve and minister this week, remind yourself by what power and in what Name you do so. Is it the same One you confessed you were united with? If so, what does that do with your human fear?

Bibledoorajar: The Boast of God's Provision

     The Israelites had taken a lamb, the lamb, their lamb and slaughtered it and placed its' blood upon their doorposts on the outside of their homes. Their confidence now rested on this aspect of their acceptance of God's freedom process. Their boast to each other was that God would prevent the destroyer from doing any damage to their firstborn through the blood on the doorposts.  But they were also supposed to carry out a provision on the inside of their houses too. They were to roast their lamb's flesh with fire and eat the flesh with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs. Thus, not only would they be saved but they would have the strength that food gives to begin the journey that lay before them.

We have small unbaptized children in our family who closely observe the believers partaking of the communion. They do not completely understand what God has appropriated for us in the feast nor do they yet have a great appreciation for the fellowship and community that we enjoy as we partake. We try to teach them that the focus is on Jesus. That He is the Lamb of God and the Bread of Life. Each week we get sustained; He gets honored. I so do not want them to miss the significance of the death that brings life. It is, after all, not the hero view of the young. The hero never dies! To them the play hero that they may hold in their hands even during the communion service holds greater power to ward off those who would want to harm them. And yet we continue to teach that that dead Lamb would live again and would become the basis for the greatest boast of all for believers.

      "Our confidence, even our boast, is in the perfection of another, in him 'who makes men holy,' making us chidren in the family of God and infinitely precious to Him."

                                                                                                Hebrews 2:11

My prayer for our children in 2016 is that this great boast will not just be a dry doctrine, but that they will embrace the whole truth of God's great love for us and that that great love led Him to come to us in our great need. They need that powerful food!