Approaching Your Year(2023-4)-5[part-2]

APPROACHING YOUR YEAR-V—Exodus 12:3-13[part-2](:1-13)

Attention: Turkey Hunting:

Last year I had my chance to do the traditional thing of shooting my own turkey for Thanksgiving.

I got all geared-up to bag a turkey. I had so much camouflage on, that nobody could’ve seen me coming! I slung my favorite turkey gun over my shoulder & off I went...

And Man-Oh-Man, you should have seen the people scatter, while I was quietly stalking that perfect turkey...in the grocery store meat department!

It is very easy to go back to our ‘usual ways’ of doing things. Including the way we approach this new year before us.

We can be tempted—God’s people can be tempted—to approach this year in the same way we have approached every year before this one.

We may make a pact with ourselves to do things differently. But ‘different’ is not necessarily best or even ‘better’!

However, ‘Different’ is indeed best, WHEN-&-Only-WHEN it’s brought about by the real power of our LORD in your personal life!

•God’s people must approach their ‘New Year’ within the confines of an exclusively Christian worldview!

Need:

For all that this New Year will hold, God’s people should & can approach it with Confidence!

We can be confident, because every true Christian’s confidence rests in the absolute faithfulness of Almighty God toward His people thru Christ Jesus!

God established a novel way for Israel to approach their calendar year.

God’s people—Christians/The Church— should have a particular approach toward understanding their calendar year.

BUT, ?How are we to approach our new year?

Rom. 14:7-8—“For none of us lives to himself, & no one dies to himself. For if we live, we live to the Lord; & if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.”

We’ve found previously that

A proper approach toward your year is found in...

1. Your GOD(:1a)

2. Your SPOKESMEN(:1b)

3. Your EGYPT(:1c)

4. Your PATTERN(:2)

5. Your DELIVERANCE(:3-13)[part-1](:3-9)

5—A proper approach toward your year is also found in...

Your DELIVERANCE(:3-13)[part-2].

Explanation:(:3-13) Faith/Passion

(CONT from Part-1...):9—“‘Roasted in fire,...

:9—“‘Do not eat it raw, nor boiled at all with water, but roasted in fire--its head with its legs & its entrails.”

:9—“Roasted in fire...”

•The unblemished(:5) sacrifice(:6) was to be “roasted in fire”, fully, completely as is. An unadulterated ‘lamb’ or ‘goat.’

•No spices, additions or special preparation to enhance the flavor. Nothing added nor taken away, but simply as God provides....

You DON’T ADD ‘some Jesus’ to your already anemic fleshly list of little-‘g’ god’s that you already serve!...INSTEAD you must supplant them all with Jesus!

The Israelites are in anticipation of a one-time window of opportunity, to EXCHANGE their current affliction of slavery in Egypt...FOR their own national autonomy, freedom, life, love, direction, happiness, real strength, & God’s power in their lives.

:10—“‘You shall let none of it remain until morning, & what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.”

*The ‘saving sacrifice’(lamb) is to be completely DEVOURED.

[Again-:8]—Jn. 6:35, 48-57—“And Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, & he who believes in Me shall never thirst.”.....“ “I am the bread of life. “Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, & are dead. “This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that one may eat of it & not die. “I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; & the bread that I shall give is My flesh, which I shall give for the life of the world.”.....“As the living Father sent Me, & I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.”

•Whatever we focus our ministry on—Jesus, or the Christ, or God the Father, or God the Holy Spirit, or Salvation, or Christ’s Lordship, or Our circumstances, etc.—we dare not make anything LESS of them, nor anything MORE of them than they really are, in their God-ordained fullness!

*That’s the difficulty we get into when we don’t know the written word of God—when we don’t read the Bible, & when we don’t engage or immerse ourselves in Bible Study.

•Ignorance is NOT bliss in eternal matters!

*The ‘saving sacrifice’(lamb) is also COMPLETE.

Col. 2:8-15—“Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy & empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, & not according to Christ. For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; & you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality & power. In Him you were also circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, by putting off the body of the sins of the flesh, by the circumcision of Christ, buried with Him in baptism, in which you also were raised with Him through faith in the working of God, who raised Him from the dead. And you, being dead in your trespasses & the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses, having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. Having disarmed principalities & powers, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them in it.”