TUESDAY March 11th
Now, I don’t have a physical, book edition of an English Standard Version concordance, I only have the smaller, condensed concordances that you often find at the end of the ESV Bible as you do in other versions as well, but I do have a physical copy of the Strongs Exhaustive Commentary of the KJV of the Bible and so at this point while preparing these devotions I decided to look up the words ‘prepare’, ‘prepared’ etc. to see how often they are to be found in the scripture and it is used quite frequently in the KJV while the other versions will use an alternative without losing the meaning. So, preparing, being prepared and preparation are an important part of what it is to be a part of God’s family, I hope this has already come out as I have covered the last few devotions.
There is another occasion where preparation was essential and it is found in the book of Exodus, where we come to the occasion where the exodus of the Children of Israel was about to take place—but not before they had prepared properly for it according to the instruction that God gave to them through Moses.
Here are the verses from Exodus 20:3-13 and we read the verses today and then return to them again in the next devotion.
‘Tell all the congregation of Israel that on the tenth day of this month every man shall take a lamb according to their fathers’ houses, a lamb for a household. And if the household is too small for a lamb, then he and his nearest neighbour shall take according to the number of persons; according to what each can eat you shall make your count for the lamb. Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male a year old. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats, and you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of this month, when the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill their lambs at twilight. “Then they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and the lintel of the houses in which they eat it. They shall eat the flesh that night, roasted on the fire; with unleavened bread and bitter herbs they shall eat it. Do not eat any of it raw or boiled in water, but roasted, its head with its legs and its inner parts. And you shall let none of it remain until the morning; anything that remains until the morning you shall burn. In this manner you shall eat it: with your belt fastened, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. And you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD’s Passover. For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will strike all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the LORD. The blood shall be a sign for you, on the houses where you are. And when I see the blood, I will pass over you, and no plague will befall you to destroy you, when I strike the land of Egypt.’
For today, notice the instructions that needed to be followed through exactly to God’s specification which would result in the protection and the deliverance of the Children of Israel. God made the provision, they needed to accept it, obey it and apply it and as a result they would be prepared, ready for their deliverance and salvation.
These verses point to an even more important preparation that God had made for you and me and made for every man and women to allow us to also know deliverance and salvation and it was in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ who came to be our Passover Lamb.