Annie
Scriptures
Exodus 12:1-28 Isaiah 52:11 1 Peter 2:9 In the darkness, they sat, mothers, fathers, children, every generation, waiting, obediently waiting. In obedience they had taken the blood of a pure lamb, daubed it on the doorposts and on the lintel, and in obedience they waited. Then they heard it, the wailing, the screams, the anguished cries of parents cradling their firstborn children, lifeless, in their arms. And they knew, because of the blood of the pure lambs, the angel of death had passed over their homes, just as God had promised.
In the same way, a pure Lamb, without spot or blemish is forever our only hope of everlasting life, our only hope that the angel of death will pass over us at our last day.
The ancient prophets, psalmists and priests all knew that nothing unclean or impure can exist in the presence of the Living God. Anything less than absolute purity will be consumed by His Righteousness and cease to be. Moses knew that he could not even look upon the Face of God and survive; God placed him in the cleft of the rock and covered Moses with His Hand as His glory passed by. So, without the grace and lovingkindness of our Father God, what hope is there for this broken, sinful, hedonistic human race? In a word, none. Outside of Him, we have no hope at all.
For centuries, the human race has measured its goodness, its greatness, its righteousness against its own standards, a forever shifting goal as morals and ethics change as surely as the tides of the sea. What behaviour one generation regards as right and proper, another will regard the same as restrictive and puritanical. There is only one plumb-line that never changes, that never bends to the latest whim or fashionable trend. God’s righteousness never wavers, and never will.
This all sounds very daunting – BUT GOD. From before the foundation of the earth, God had made a way for us to reach Him, to be able to live in eternal, everlasting joy with Him. We look with our eyes and think that there is no possible way, yet, when we look through our Abba Father’s eyes, we see Jesus, the Way Himself. The spotless, unblemished, pure Lamb who willingly chose to go through a death that we can never completely understand.
Jesus, the only sinless man who ever lived, became sin for us, that we might gain His righteousness. It’s totally beyond imagination that someone who had only ever known purity, became the filth and degradation that sin is in all its manifestations. And all because God’s desire for us to share eternity with Him transcends all else. The Father was prepared to do the only thing that would buy us purity that we could never achieve alone, He sacrificed His only Son to death on the cruel Roman cross.
When despair at my failings and futile attempts at cleaning myself up, overwhelm me; when the slimy walls of the pit I am in are just impossible to climb; when my heart breaks with longing to grasp hold of the reality of my salvation; there is only one thing I am able to do. I find that tiny glimmer of Light that, within seconds, fills my heart, driving away the pain, the darkness, the despair. The Light before whose purity my doubts and fears disappear, and I know with such assurance that I am His, washed clean by His Blood, clothed in His Righteousness, filled with His Purity.
When my imagination is consumed by God, I am able to let go of my striving, abandon my own attempts at attaining righteousness my way, and I can rest in Him.
Prayer: Father God, thank You sounds so meagre, but we have no other words to say. For the pure, spotless Lamb, sacrificed for us, we offer You our sacrifice of praise and worship. Through His precious Name, we give You thanks, Amen