I just had to paint this. It has been rumbling around in my head for weeks. This is called, "Passover." The Passover is a Jewish celebration that is coming up right before Easter. They celebrate a time in their history when God sent plagues to Egypt to convince Pharoah to let them go free. The Israelite people were protected from the plagues of locusts and hail and boils and frogs etc. that fell on the other Egyptians. |
I am beginning to imagine better how that felt for them to hunker down with their families, waiting for it all to be over. Praying to be spared, hoping that the blood on their door was enough. Why had God asked them to put blood on their doors? It was a sign of things to come. Blood covered sins in their culture. They had to make sacrifices of an innocent animal to take their place for their sins.
Later, when God came down as their messiah Jesus, he paid for their sins once for all. They no longer needed to make sacrifices because His blood paid the price for every sin mankind would make from then on. The Israelites were the only ones with blood on their posts, it was a sign that they belonged to God, that they were His special people, protected and beloved.
Blood on the doorposts in the shape of a cross reminds me that Jesus gives us grace, all of us, and that He forgives us. I have several crosses on my door right now, decorations really, but a proclamation of to whom I belong.
Joshua 24:15 New Living Translation (NLT) “But if you refuse to serve the Lord, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the Lord.”
Now, I am NOT saying that blood or paint on our doorposts will protect us from the Corona Virus, But I am saying that I am thankful that Jesus’s sacrifice for me not only protects me from hell, and allows me to be one of God’s children, but trusting Him with my life has given me so much hope and joy even in the midst of fear and uncertainty. I know God is good and He is love.
We all have the chance to be called His own. I would be wasting my breathe if I didn’t tell you how much God loves you, and how He sacrificed His own life to prove it to you. I hope that you will decide to be called His. Not to avoid punishment, not out of guilt or pressure, but because you have seen His provision and care, and how much He loves you!
John 3:16 (NLT) “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.
1 John 4:10 This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.
John 1:12 But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God.
Are there verses that have resonated with you during this time? I’d love for you to share them with me in the comments below!
-Deborah King