Well, it's that time of year again when COGland is a flurry of activity as vacuums, brooms, and dustpans are working in a frenzy as members desperately look for leaven in suit/dress pockets, under the stoves, in the kid's toy box, under the seats in the car and every imaginable place they can think of to look. It's pretty much a hopeless task, just as they can't keep the entire law they can't keep leaven out of their lives.
Then, the worst happens during the week of Unleavened Bread, their hearts skip a beat when they find a stray cracker or a cookie crumb they missed. They then feel guilty for not getting sin out of their lives and promise to do better till the next Passover when their slate is swiped clean, at least for the hour or two they are sitting services. For some, sin enters their lives that very same night when they don't want to wash certain people's feet or they swear under their breath when some jerk cuts them off on the freeway on their drive home.
Since most of the ministry fails to understand the New Covenant about slates being wiped clean, they are unable to console members throughout the year and instead have to relentlessly beat into their followers what sinful sacks of garbage they are. Jesus longs to elevate that doubt, but COG ministers thrive on it as do many members. They then have to keep working to do better and to be perpetual martyrs for trying to do what is right.
All of the hard work in preparing for UB seems to be a hopeless task for many and the result is the need for an annual sacrifice of Christ on some Elks Lodge/Masonic Hall/gym stage, where he seems to be left behind each year to languish for another year when he is spoken of once again. Who can forget the sound of breaking matzos amplified across the gym or seating area deliberately amplified louder to make members feel guilty for the need to sacrifice him again for their endless sins. Is it any wonder so many people in the church never felt worthy? While looking at it as a remembrance, most fail to realize that it is also a foretaste of the joyful heavenly banquet to come when all are accepted at the table, not just COG members.
But, in the meantime, LCG members struggle to get it right.
Eliminating Spiritual Leaven: The Scriptures state that leaven is to be removed from our homes and not eaten during the Days of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15). This physical exercise is designed to help us understand the importance of identifying and eliminating spiritual leaven that tends to creep into our lives. Spiritual leaven includes breaking God’s commandments as well as compromising and rebelling against His instructions and His government. Eliminating spiritual leaven also involves overcoming the works of the flesh: lusting, coveting, hatred, sowing seeds of contention, spreading divisive ideas, and personal selfish ambitions (Galatians 5:19–21). As we partake of the Passover and go through the Days of Unleavened Bread, ask God to show you any spiritual leaven that you need to eliminate from your life. Let’s also be forgiving of others and be thankful for the sacrifice that Jesus Christ made so we can be forgiven.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail
14 comments:
Way back in AC, I wanted to be baptized so I could partake of Passover. But the pastor said I could not be baptized because my "personality" was not "Out-going" enough. I've related this story before on this site, but I'm always reminded of it at this time of year. My personality did not change but I was able to partake of the next Passover.
So I believed what the big, high-up pastor said.
But it all turned out okay because after leaving WCG, we found the grace and truth of Jesus Christ... and were so excited that we were re-baptized.
Please, people, come out of the Churches of God spinters. We live under the NEW Covenant, NOT the Old Covenant. Jesus' sacrifice was once for all and once for all time.
Leave, love Jesus, get to know Him and be set free from sin. God's blessings on you all.
"Spiritual" leaven, examples of: I'm the only prophet; I'm both a prophet and an apostle; I am God's apostle; We're God's government; I'm the endtime Elijah; We're God Church; etc. Notice: they're puffed up. They are leavened. They don't understand the DUB and don't even observe the days: Nisan 14-20. Seven days unleavened bread is to be eaten including at the Passover service (Deut 16:2-3), not eight days.
I got rid of the spiritual leaven when I left the ACOG cult system. Those puffed up people think they are the chosen ones.
To Anon @ 1:26, Amen and hallelujah!! We are NOT Old Testament Jews. Believers are members, be they Jew or Gentile, of the Body of Christ, living under the New Testament. We are still sinners, but fully reliant on the finished Atonement of Jesus, Holy Spirit sealed and indwelled, guided by Him.
We have seen the consequences of sin and give thanks and praise daily that Jesus died in our place, to pay the penalty for our sins, his death. We have full assurance, NOW, that our sins are remembered no more and removed as far as east is from west. We died with Christ in our sin and were resurrected with Him, in New life! We HAVE PASSED from death to life. Now that is the greatest news anyone could ever hear!! Praise God and thank you Jesus! I rest in you and in your completed atonement and will praise You forevermore! Ephesians 2:8-10, "I repeat, it is owing to His favor that salvation is yours through faith. This is not your own doing, it is God's gift; neither is it a reward for anything you have accomplished, so let no one pride himself on it".
You can look for every last cracker crumb, but will never remove your sin until you come to Jesus.
He had to single out forgiveness. How about singling out rights, such as members right to be free from abuse and deception. Or the right to be free from church stalkers and be left alone. Instead he's grooming members to be door mats and punching bags for the church crazies. They don't want to lose the crazies tithe money.
It struck me years ago how repulsive, to the Jewish people, the concept of:
" 53 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day. 55 For My flesh is food indeed, and My blood drink indeed. 56 He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him."
would seem. This is cannibalism at best and would come across to the Jewish community of the times as very pagan and Gentile in nature.
Even Acts 15 admonished the gentile converts to "abstain from blood", which probably reflects the authors unfamiliarity with the above concept of eating human flesh and drinking human blood.
This bothered me even as a Dutch Reformed Presbyterian Orthodox kid.
Tis the season I suppose...
1 Corinthians 5:8
Therefore, let us keep the feast (Gk.heortazo), celebrate the festival (see RSV, NASB)!
How? With the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth!
I no longer monkey around with vacuum cleaners or eating crackers, because I celebrate the festival with the the REAL THING.
John 6:32
The TRUE bread from heaven.
John 6:48
I am THAT BREAD of life.
John 6:51
I am the LIVING bread from heaven.
Why screw around with rituals when you can enjoy the REAL THING?
True BP8
BP8,
Good comment. Jesus Christ has removed our leavening/sin. Those Torah rituals point to Christ, and what he has done for us. Christians will NOT find salvation or fulfillment in moving furniture and vacuuming out their cars! As you noted, we have the REAL THING!
Comments always go down during this season. We are some of that spiritual leaven, and get put away for a while. But not to be discouraged, because they'll be letting us back in right about the time they buy their new baking powder.
BP8 writes:
“Why screw around with rituals when you can enjoy the REAL THING?”
Ex 23:15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib;...
Eze 45:21 In the first month, in the fourteenth day of the month, ye shall have the passover, a feast of seven days; unleavened bread shall be eaten.
In the New Covenant in the Messianic Age the ritual of eating unleavened bread will continue in the first month.
So the question is, does your comment mean that you also do not eat UB during feast time?
438
Do I now eat UB during the festival? No, but neither do I sacrifice lambs, which will be done in the messianic age. Why should I when I can enjoy the REAL THING, the UB of sincerity and truth and Christ the bread of life?
It's an interesting study to look through Scripture and get all the nuances on the idea of eating, or partaking, or living by, or being sustained by food or nourishment.
Christ:
Man shall not LIVE BY bread alone, but by every word of God, Matt 4:4.
This is the BREAD from heaven that a man may EAT there of, John 6:50
I am the living BREAD. If anyone EAT OF THIS BREAD, he shall live forever, and the BREAD which I give is my flesh, John 6:51.
Of course the Jews then and now wouldn't comprehend this, Even as some on this blog apparently don't either. But that's ok.
I have no problem if someone feels the need to eat crackers, or sacrifice a lamb, or sweep a house clean 2 weeks before the holyday even starts, like my mother does, but personally I don't feel the need!
Thanks BP8 for your answer.
While I eat UB, I also do not sacrifice a lamb, but then again I am not in Jerusalem:
Dt 16:5 You may not sacrifice the Passover within any of your gates which Yahweh your God gives you;
Dt 16:6 but at the place which Yahweh your God shall choose to cause his name to dwell in, there you shall sacrifice the Passover at evening, at the going down of the sun, at the season that you came out of Egypt. (WEB).
That spiritual leaven is hypocrisy. And they have it, because they judge base on appearance. They are told not to that, it's what the pharisees did. John 7:24
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