Translate This Page
Unleaven Bread
By G. Neil Armstrong
Have I been missing the point? Have I failed to see the manner in which God requires of me for His sake, and for my own? I have read the passage below over and over again, and only just read it. In the past, it always seemed a bore to read about the laws and the sacrifices. It seemed to repeat again and again.
My concern now is why did these things get repeated, and gone over, and announced and practiced at specific times and in specific ways? The sacrifices were “rehearsals”, or the “in the making”, or the “behind the scenes” of Christ and what He means to humanity. This one, the Passover, the Unleaven Bread, it is to USward. It is understood that yeast can come via airborne and leaven the dough, but the UNleaven bread is not with such; it is new. It is pure, without power or the ability to “rise”.
This bread, eaten for 7 days, represents that we are new, and separate people. We are not tainted by the “winds” of yeast, or “pleasures of the world”, it is pure bread. Bread is a symbol for our flesh. We must be pure and holy for 7 days, absent of anything as of our own flesh lusts. There is reference to this in Isaiah, as the Sabbath unto the LORD (Isaiah 58).
Ex 13:3 And Moses said unto the
people, Remember this day, in which ye came out from Egypt, out of the house of
bondage; for by strength of hand the LORD brought you out from this place: there
shall no leavened bread be eaten.
13: 7 Unleavened bread shall be eaten seven
days; and there shall no leavened bread be seen with thee, neither shall there
be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters. 8 And thou shalt shew thy son in that day,
saying, This is done because of that which the LORD did
unto me when I came forth out of Egypt.
Father, please show me the way back to Your way. I have veered off and it seems unfamiliar to be, and not as it once was; out here in the wasteland. It is not where I am expected to be. I am to be accounted for in line with Your purpose. Often times I ponder Your will and I see many things that are made straight by Your divine hand. It is not my doing in any of this that I can boast because I have faltered every step of the way. It is You, o LORD, who has cleaned up the messes I’ve made in my life. This is not so that I can endure for a season and then to come home and be with You. That is the fairy-tale story of “Little, Baby Jesus”. In fact, You are He who taught us to cry at the birth and rejoice at the death. I understand that life on earth is superficial, and that it is only for a season. During which, I would like to offer my sacrifice of obedience, and I want to offer it with salt.
I want to make my life subject to Your will, o LORD, and I want to do all of those things You had shown me. I cannot. I pray to you today because I cannot make my way straight with You. I am not a hopeless cause, LORD. I am a man who has succumbed to the “wind” of the world, and am no longer UNleaven. I didn’t offer myself up soon enough, and my lump was tainted by the pollen of the air, of the world.
As in many times of my life, I have offered the Leaven bread, of myself, a part of my past leavening added to the lump of new dough. This has made “a little leavening leavens the whole lump”. I need this leavening cast out of my whole possessions. No place in the camp can there be found any. As a new lump, I offer myself to You, o LORD. I am fresh. I am not tainted by the “winds” of the world. I surrender all of the things to You. No so that they are at my disposal, to access at will, but that they be disposed of, by the blood You shed on Calvary.
I celebrate Your birth this Christmas in remembrance of your death. In remembrance of all of Your life. All that You had done and stood for. This is why we celebrate our own birthday, and this is how I celebrate Yours. I pray in Jesus’ name, amen.
By G. Neil Armstrong
