9/30 - Exodus 12:3-7 - Have you painted your doorposts red?

³ Tell the whole congregation

of Israel ... to take a lamb ... 

⁵ without blemish ... ⁶ [and on] 

the fourteenth day of this month ...

slaughter it at twilight. ⁷ [Then]

they shall take some of the blood

and put it on the two doorposts

and the lintel of the houses ...

Exodus 12:3-7

In the midst of life’s bondages, how are you set free? Step 3 in the Exodus Model of the Journey to Freedom is not our step. It’s not our action. Step 3 is God’s action!

 

And in Exodus 3, God raised up for Israel a deliverer – Moses. Moses, however, was a mortal man, and you and I can’t rely on some dead historical figure for our freedom.

 

So where is our hope thirty-five hundred years later?

 

·         Moses was a deliverer.

 

·         But … he (and the Exodus) pointed to THE DELIVERER.

 

Moses – and the Exodus Journey – prefigured God’s eternal plan for healing, hope, and freedom. Here’s the pattern:

 

·         In our verses for today, freedom began for Israel after they trusted God's command and slathered their doorposts with the blood of a lamb. Historically, this event was called the Passover.

 

^·          Thirty-five centuries later, victory comes for us when we trust in God’s provision and "paint" the doorposts of our hearts with The Blood of The Lamb. And who is that perfect Lamb? Jesus, as you probably know, is THE Lamb; as John the Baptist proclaimed, Jesus is "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." ^{John 1:29} 

We hinted yesterday about Jesus being God’s plan and path for freedom. He is! Now, we’ll talk about how Jesus does this throughout the rest of this study! But for now, let me simply establish this scripturally as Jesus’ sacred and eternal role …

 

·         "For freedom Christ has set us free," says Galatians 5:1, "Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery." Where does bondage come from? The yoke of slavery comes from the things of this earth – most notably, sin and deception. In contrast, true freedom must come from above, and “for freedom, Christ has set us free.”

 

·         “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” ^{Romans 8:2} Again, “the yoke of slavery” includes “the law of sin and death.” But God “has set you free from a greater “law” – “the law … of life in Christ Jesus.”

 

·         And John 8:32 reiterates this … and says it most simply: “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

 

If you are enslaved, perhaps what you need most is to give yourself ever more fully the Jesus-the-Lamb-of-God.

 

In Christ’s Love,

a guy who needs to

buy some blood red paint

(It’s the only color that will cover

all of my hatred, discouragement,

anxiety, abrasiveness, doubt,

greed, courseness, and

impulsive behaviors.)