Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
One of the best pictures in the Bible of the cross is the Passover ceremony, which was God’s provision of deliverance and salvation for Israel (Exodus 12:21-23).
The father of each household would kill the lamb and drain its blood into a basin and apply the blood on the lintel and two-door post of his house. However, as Derek Prince pointed out, you were never to apply the blood on the threshold because you were not to walk on or over the blood (Heb. 10:29). The destroying angel could not enter the house where the blood was applied, but the Israelites were only safe if they stayed in the house under the blood.
The cross is a central topic in all of the New Testament and here are some amazing statistics concerning the passion of Christ. There are 4 gospels that have a total of 86 chapters; 26 of those chapters are devoted to the events in the last week of Jesus’ life. Think about it like this, Jesus lived approximately 12,000 days on the earth and 1/3 of the gospels focus on the last 7 days of His life. There are approximately 216 direct or indirect references to the cross in the epistles. This means on average, 1 of 13 sentences in the New Testament concerns the cross. You think the Holy Spirit might be trying to tell us something?
The cross really is central and like Paul said, “of first importance” (1 Cor. 15:3) but it is only the beginning of the Christian life. We can be covered in the blood, but still be living in captivity. The morning after the Passover Israel was still living in Egypt. We can have our sins forgiven but still be in bondage. We can have a sense of forgiveness, but no sense of freedom in our heart, so sooner or later the joy of forgiveness wanes in captivity and this is the experience of many believers.
God has an answer. Eat the Lamb and drink His blood (John 6:53-58). The Lord told the Hebrews to eat their Passover lamb (Ex. 12:8). They ate the lamb and it became the physical nourishment, strength and vitality for them to walk out of captivity. They walked in the energy of the lamb and left Egypt behind. That is a picture of grace, which is what Jesus was trying to tell us, eat Him and drink His blood. Christ, our Passover Lamb, is living inside us and He provides us the spiritual nourishment, strength and vitality to make the walk away from our former lives and into a new life in Christ. The lamb was the total answer for the Hebrews and our Lamb is the total answer for us.
There is something else – a lot of believers are suffering from wounds and broken heartedness of their pre-Christian life in Egypt. They may have walked out of Egypt, but there is a residue of Egypt in them, binding them up, and pulling them down. Fears, phobias, addictions, depression and the like are all residue of Egypt.
There is a move of God going on right now, the Spirit of the Lord is healing the broken hearted; He is setting people free from the pain in their lives (Luke 4:18-19). Interestingly, it is almost like an under-ground move of God because most of this stuff is not talked about publicly. There really is an underground river of Luke 4:18-19 flowing in the earth and I believe this will ultimately change the face of the church.
This is for us right now, Jesus speaking of Luke 4:18-19 said, “Today this Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21). If you can hear it you can have your breakthrough, healing and deliverance today.
Many Blessings, BW