Cleansing

Discovering God’s Purposes by Relating with Him through the Lord’s Appointed Times of Unleavened Bread

TRUTH AND PURPOSE

Being clean is a key principle of God. Beyond merely being clean on the outside, God looks for us to be clean on the inside. He, therefore, gives us opportunities to see areas within our heart and mind that need cleansing from sin; for sin impairs our relationship with a holy God. Unleavened Bread, therefore, serves to represent times of spiritual cleansing before God.

The scriptures prescribed that all leaven was to be removed from the home. Why leaven?  It is a fermenting substance; a turbulent form of bacterium that is permeating and pervasive in nature. It spreads like a cancer or virus, contaminating, polluting and corrupting what it touches. It therefore, is used as a metaphor for sin and falsehood. As it spreads, it compromises and destroys what is true, good and otherwise pure. It prevents the love of God from flowing freely in us and through us.

RELEVANCE

The LORD’s blood erased our slate from the handwriting of God’s judgment, “cleaning” our account from the debt of sin.  We celebrate His cleaning of our “spiritual house,” our bodies, by receiving His love and keeping our hearts and minds clean, meditating on His words and noble and righteous thoughts, and resisting the temptations of the world—vain desires, pride and pulls of the world.

Beyond the external things that can destroy our physical bodies, we can allow our spiritual condition to deteriorate from the inside—by harboring destructive attitudes, like bitterness and judgment; and maintaining selfish motivations and pursuing self-centered interests and agendas.  That’s why the LORD declared, “There is nothing outside a person which, by going into him, can make him unclean. Rather, it is the things that come out of a person which make a person unclean!” (Mark 7:15 JNT) 

God wants us to walk in integrity—values based on what is sound, true and right. That’s why Paul reasoned; “Therefore let us keep the feast, not with old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” (1 Corinthians 5:8) In other words, be doers of the word in deed and in love.

Paul taught how our body is the temple of God’s Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19)  It, therefore, behooves us to keep ourselves clean on the inside by reading, meditating, and digesting God’s Word, communing with Him by the Holy Spirit, and confessing and turning (or repenting) from revealed sins.  

REFLECTION, REALITY AND RESPONSE

In what ways do you endeavor to keep your heart clean before God? 

In what ways do you hurt yourself by harboring wrong attitudes of the heart? 

Are there any things you do on a regular basis that may cause harmful attitudes to persist?

What falsehoods might you be holding onto or trusting in that could be preventing you from receiving truth from God?

REFERENCES

Psalm 19:7-14; 24; 51; 119: 1-40; Matthew 5:8; 21-29; 12:33-37; 13:18-23; Mark 7:17-23; Ephesians 4:17-32

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Unless otherwise specified, all Scripture references are taken from the New King James Version. Copyright 1982, by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. Scriptures marked JNT taken from the Jewish New Testament. Copyright © 1979 by David H. Stern. Published by Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc. Scriptures marked NLT are taken from New Living Translation Holy Bible, copyright © 1996, 2004 by Tyndale Charitable Trust.