THE SEASON OF REDEMPTION: Remove the Leaven and Remember Him
THE SEASON OF REDEMPTION
Remove the Leaven and
‘Remember Me’
This is the season of redemption… this is the season of Passover.
As we ready our homes, hearts and minds to participate in this set-apart time, He asks us to remove all leaven.
“Seven days you eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day is a festival to יהוה. Unleavened bread is to be eaten the seven days, and whatever is leavened is not to be seen with you, and leaven is not to be seen with you within all your border.”
Exodus 13:6-7
Seven days of no leaven speaks of His redeeming blood that flows forward and back through time to save us from sin… seven days… seven thousand years.
His unleavened life is in His blood...
“For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your lives, for it is the blood that makes atonement for the life.”
Leviticus 17:11
When He tells us to remove all leaven that means all leaven, just as He says. All yeast, baking powder, baking soda and anything which contains leaven, ie bread, cereals (yes, some contain yeast), cookies, soups… anything that contains any leavening.
From the evening of the meal of Passover, which Yeshua held and is referred to by many as ‘the last supper’, and for seven days thereafter, there is to be no leaven in our homes and we will eat only unleavened bread. He asks us to do this for His purposes and to be His witness as our homes become set-apart unto Him. Let us honor His instruction.
We are to partake of His Passover as ‘His people’… knowing Him and not ‘strangers’ to Him or His ways. We are to becircumcised unto Him… body, soul and spirit… we are to be circumcised in heart. If we have been grafted in, it is through His redemption and the ‘thirty pieces of silver’ of His sacrifice as the Passover Lamb.
“It is a night to be observed unto יהוה for bringing them out of the land of Mitsrayim (Egypt). This night is unto יהוה, to be observed by all the children of Yisra’ĕl throughout their generations. And יהוה said to Mosheh and Aharon,
‘This is the law of the Passover:
No son of a stranger is to eat of it, but any servant a man has bought for silver, when you have circumcised him, then let him eat of it.’”
Exodus 12:43-44
We are not to be strangers to Him, nor uncircumcised. Circumcision is cutting away of flesh… remove the leaven.
I received a phone call from a pray-er the other evening and she shared a beautiful revelation that was given to another pray-er. As this woman was praying, He asked her, ‘Why didn’t the lions eat Daniel?’ She answered that she did not know. He answered her:
‘Because he had no flesh’.
Selah… think on this
This command to remove leaven was given to remind us that we are to be a righteous people. And His righteousness… His way of life… is lined out in His eternal word. Leaven represents puffing up, rising up, rebellion, flesh… sin.
What is sin?
“Everyone doing sin also does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness.”
1 John 3:4
John wrote that.
Sin is lawlessness. Sin is ‘missing the mark’… and ‘the mark’, the target is found in the full instruction of His set-apart word.
Sin is saying to Him, ‘I will do things my way, thank you very much’.
Although this ‘self-made way’ may seem right to a man, it is a way that leads to death and will end in sorrow and pain, because it is ‘man-made’ and not the ‘high way of holiness’. It is not His way, it is man’s way.
“There is a way which seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death.”
Proverbs 14:12
This is the season and the time to take an account… to let Him take an account of our ‘house’… our lives, our lifestyles.
This last week, we went through our closets and storeroom and began to remove what He considered leaven. More cleaning out of the old ways… getting rid of anything and everything that He showed to remove.
Ask Him to help you in this and He will.
Just let Him take you by the hand in Messiah and, in humility as a little child, allow Him to be the Father that He wants to be. Let Him show you what He does and does not like and be willing to remove any leaven.
Allow Him to show you what stays and what doesn’t. Movies, videos, games, books, clothes, dishes, decorations, pictures, activities, whatever it might be, even to ‘friends’ and ‘associates’. He will greatly love that you have yielded to Him in every part of your home, heart and lives. This will truly be honoring our Father ‘that it will go well’ with us.
Unless He builds and manages the house, it is all in vain.
His hand of forgiveness is being extended during this season in a very special way as we look upon Him Who was pierced for us. And His forgiveness comes as we humble ourselves and repent.
Let us never leave out that ‘key’ and ‘door’ to forgiveness: repentance. Salvation without a call to repentance is like diapering a baby but leaving the old, foul smelling diaper on, bringing festering, life threatening sores.
Let us remove the leaven through heartfelt repentance… teshuvah… turning around back to Him, coming forth cleansed and renewed. This is truly the season of returning to our first Love, for we are to love Him first.
This is the season where our Master Yeshua said to us, ‘Do this in remembrance of Me’.
“And taking bread, giving thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is My body which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Me.’ Likewise the cup also, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you.’’
Luke 22:19-20
And this:
“For I received from the Master that which I also delivered to you: that the Master Yeshua in the night in which He was delivered up took bread, and having given thanks, He broke it and said, ‘Take, eat, this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.’
In the same way also the cup, after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood. As often as you drink it, do this in remembrance of Me.’
For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the death of the Master until He comes. So that whoever should eat this bread or drink this cup of the Master unworthily shall be guilty of the body and blood of the Master.
But let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread and drink of that cup. For the one who is eating and drinking unworthily, eats and drinks judgment to himself, not discerning the body of the Master. Because of this many are weak and sick among you, and many sleep. For if we were to examine ourselves, we would not be judged.”
1 Corinthians 11:23-31
Paul was writing to the Corinthians about upholding His Torah, His good instruction. He was writing about the season of Passover and His Body and His Blood that was given during that time, and he was upholding the call to remove the leaven.
This is the season of ‘removing the leaven’ and ‘remembering Him’. He did not just say ‘remember Me’, but said ‘do this in remembrance of Me’. Let us do this, keep the Passover, in sobriety and joy.
In joy because this is the night that the Lover of our souls poured out all that He contained in His glorious vessel, cup,that we might become part of His Kingdom and partake of His eternal life. This is the set-apart Betrothal table of the Bridegroom of blood.
‘This cup is the new covenant in My blood which is shed for you’
He was the sinless unleavened bread of life… the manna from heaven. He laid His life down that we too might walk in righteousness in and through Him.
‘This is My body which is given for you’
But this was never to mean that there is not a cost to us. We are to follow hard after Him and remove the leaven from our lives.
“Because the gate is narrow and the way is hard pressed which leads to life, and there are few who find it.”
Matthew 7:14
Also ‘saying one thing’ and ‘doing another’, or ‘doing something outwardly’ but our hearts being divided away from Him is also leaven. The Pharisees in leadership (not all the Pharisees) in the first century when He came that He is referring to in this Scripture below, were a corrupt group. They were compromised, as clearly Herodes was as well.
“And He was warning them, saying, ‘Mind! Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the leaven of Herodes.’”
Mark 8:15
He hates that kind of lukewarm mixing. He will vomit the lukewarm out of His mouth… doesn’t this mean that the lukewarm will come out of His Body? Does anyone know of vomit that does not come out of a body? Let us remove the leaven. Interestingly enough, it is lukewarm water that is used to grow yeast. Selah
Sha’ul/Paul had a deep understanding of this season.
“Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the entire lump? Therefore cleanse out the old leaven, so that you are a new lump, as you are unleavened. For also Messiah our Passover was offered for us.
So then let us observe the festival, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of evil and wickedness, but with theunleavened bread of sincerity and truth.”
1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Out with the false… the old leaven. In with the truth… the unleavened bread of the festival of Passover through His perfect sinless Life. May I humbly point out that our Master Yeshua and our brother Paul kept the Passover. No mention of the fertility goddess Estarte from which the name Easter is derived or fertility ritual practices rife with bunnies and eggs. Let us remove the leaven.
But Paul also knew that only He saves. He had to remind us that this is and will always be so.
“You who are declared right by Torah have severed yourselves from Messiah, you have fallen from favor…
A little leaven leavens all the lump.”
Galatians 5:4, 9
Severing ourselves from Messiah and His saving blood is also leaven. He saves by His blood as a repentant heart cries out to Him. Then we are to walk in sanctification by ‘the washing of the water of His Word’, His true, sincere set-apart instruction. Walking in self-righteousness apart from Him… that too is leaven. But remember, so is lawlessness.
We are to sing the song of Moshe and the song of the Lamb…
“And they sing the song of Mosheh the servant of Elohim, and the song of the Lamb, saying, ‘Great and marvellous are Your works, יהוה Ěl Shaddai! Righteous and true are Your ways, O Sovereign of the set-apart ones!’”
Revelation 15:3
Not just the song of Moshe…
Not just the song of the Lamb…
But both as one song…
Singing of His works… and His ways…
He was the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world Whose blood is to be on the posts and lintel of our hearts and homes.
And He was the Voice Who spoke from the bush that burned but was not consumed and He was the Voice Who spoke forth the Ten Words. What He spoke to Moshe is a foundational part of His eternal word.
Let us allow Him, the Lamb, to fill out to the full His own Torah, instruction, word, including that brought through His servant Moshe, including all of His set-apart appointed times.
‘Remember Me’
For the past several Passovers, He has had us gather in a very meaningful but simple way.
While in Yisrael this last year at Passover, we gathered under a large ‘Abraham’s Tent’ and sat on the floor around a makeshift table.
We began to read His words from John 14. Just then He came and said to me, ‘Remember Me. Have each person give a testimony, remembering when I came and brought deliverance and help in a time of need’.
I knew immediately what I would share and as I spoke this heartfelt request from our Beloved Bridegroom, others then also knew immediately what they would remember.
Testimony after testimony came with tears… and He came and rested upon this ‘throne of Remembrance’.
He is our High Priest and as such He literally wears Remembrance Stones on His shoulders.
He is carrying all Yisrael on His shoulders, even as a Good Shepherd carries a lamb across His shoulders.
He intercedes for us daily by His own blood on the mercy seat of heaven.
We are going to be gathering and have made a simple table once again on the floor, somewhat similar to what Yeshua and His disciples used, a triclinium. We will be reading through John 13-17 and the Bridegroom… the High Priest of heaven… will be speaking to us as we set apart this time.
Let us make a ‘throne of remembrance’ for our eternal High Priest and King…
Let us remove the leaven and Remember Him as He so graciously remembers us.
Set this time apart for Him…
…take the unleavened bread and rememember Him…
…take the cup of the new covenant by His blood and remember Him…
Let us not forget Him but obey Him by remembering and observing this season of redemption…
…let us come to the betrothal table and receive the Bridal cup from His nail-scarred hands…
Let us sing the song of Moshe…
…let us sing the Song of the Lamb…
… and let us make His heart glad…
In His shalom,
Constance
“I am the good shepherd.
And I know Mine, and Mine know Me, even as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father.
And I lay down My life for the sheep.
And other sheep I have which are not of this fold – I have to bring them as well, and they shall hear My voice, and
there shall be one flock, one shepherd.
Because of this the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life, in order to receive it again.
No one takes it from Me, but I lay it down of Myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to receive it again. This command I have received from My Father.”
John 10:14-18
3/25/10
