When we think of a relationship with God we intuitively know that we must always be real with him.
After all, God knows the heart. ‘Nothing is hidden from His sight”. A person in true prayer before God comes quickly to recognize that there is no choice but to be open and sincere, to be “unleavened”
We also have a wonderful promise of assurance that as we do come to Him, even to confess our many faults,—as David well knew ,— God will not reject us.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Psalm 51:17
This of course is a principle of an Eternal Kingdom, where God ,…
“…who was and is and is to come”, reigns now both in heaven and the hearts of His own children.
Yet, how difficult it is to be real in “This present earthly world or kingdom”!!!
It is not a part of the value system of this” present earthly kingdom” where God is ignored, denied, and where men hide from, and even hate God.
As a principle, “authenticity” may be given lip service and may even be applauded to a certain degree in this world. ( Of course all within respectable bounds). Never to acknowledge ones full spiritual poverty. “Lets Just all agree that were OK and just need to “self improve”.
Personal reputation or the keeping up of false appearances will be the undoing of us if we try to hold on to it. Holding on to this just shows that the “fear of man” (what people think of us) is more important than “The fear of God”.
Being completely unleavened is a work that only the Holy Spirit can perform in the heart.
As John the Baptist stood crying out on the shores of the Jordan, “Repent and be baptized” , it was those who knew themselves to be “Poor in spirit” and who desired above all else to be right with God who were drawn toward God , it was those ones who could …step out from the crowd …and identify themselves before their peers as needing God more than a reputation before man. There stepping out was not out of an abundance of personal virtue but out of a lack of it. They chose to identify with God even though they would forever be self identified sinners in need of rescue.
And the really amazing thing is, that Jesus himself at the very beginning of His ministry, stepped into the waters of the Jordan to be baptized by John!!
Why?!!! I mean even John Knew that Jesus had no need to repent of sin. John almost refused to do it, stating to Jesus. “It is I who NEED be baptized by you and yet you come to me?”
Jesus stepped into those waters because He came to identify with “Sinners”.
Why? Because Jesus would take upon Himself the very sins of those whom He came to save.
This is basic Christianity; Basic Gospel. Lose this and there is no Gospel to tell.
Jesus is “The bread of Life”. The true and perfect unleavened —“bread of Life ,“who came down from heaven.
The way to God is through the “unleavened way”. Coming as sinner to God through Christ, who identifies with sinners who are willing to let their knowledge of spiritual poverty drive them to Him.
The Law of God against sinners stands. Yet as the Apostle Paul proclaims, “Christ is the end of the law for all who believe”, because Christ fulfills the law for us.
In the end, when this present life is slipping away— and it will— our reputation before men will be a hollow comfort, even a torture to us, if we have not allowed the ultimate reality of the kingdom of God to supersede this temporary reality so that we act according to “Ultimate Reality” .
We see this if we follow the logic of Jesus, speaking of the “leavened” pharisees who stood upon their own righteousness and reputation before men, ” I tell you the truth they have already have their reward in full”. Jesus said such are excluded from the Kingdom of God because they refuse to enter into it.
But to have God Himself, and the knowledge of His forgiveness and Love , because we have settled the issue through relationship to Christ while we could, will be more than a comfort at death.
It will be the entrance of eternal Joy, to a degree that as we slip away into Gods eternal presence, we will know the full, undiluted, unleavened joy of perfect fellowship through the eternal ages!!! It is those who are”in Christ” that will enter.
That day will most certainly come to all and the eternal realities will roll back every covering anyway so why not come and stand in the light of Christ as a trophy of God’s grace while we live? Now is the time to be unleavened the cost will seem like nothing compared to what we gain in Christ!!
As John Newton , the author of Amazing Grace so famously said ,
“Although my memory’s fading, I remember two things very clearly: I am a great sinner and Christ is a great Savior.”
Oh Lord, forgive, love, cleanse, guide and transform us as we look to you in unleavened honesty may we have no less than all you offer in Christ. Amen.
