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Celebrating Easter Imperfectly -- April 20, 2011

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Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Email Send to a Friend   Mobile Mobile   Free Newsletters Free Newsletters
Easter

Celebrating Easter Imperfectly
Sandy Coughlin
I'm encouraging everyone to put the perfect Easter packaging away this year to relish the kind of hospitality my mother taught me almost 50 years ago.
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Marriage

I Care about You Too Much to Argue
Dr. David Hawkins
"If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone" (Romans 12: 18).
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DVD Reviews

The King's Speech is Quietly Triumphant
Christa Banister
In The King's Speech, there's far more than meets the eye in this multi-layered story of a man who's reluctant to become King because of a humiliating speech impediment.
Read the full article here


Faith and The Church

Why Hell Is Integral to the Gospel
Greg Gilbert
The doctrine of hell helps us to understand how great God is, how wretched we are, and how amazing it is that God would show us grace at all. The reality of hell will focus us on the task of proclaiming the gospel to those who are in danger of spending eternity there.
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Career

Does Deprivation Foster Creativity?
Dan Miller
Would we be more creative if we needed more?
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Giving

Christian Charity and the Welfare State
Dr. Mark W. Hendrickson
There is near universal agreement among Christians of all political stripes that one of our great privileges and duties is to do charitable deeds. Where we disagree is on the question of whether the secular authority of the state should be an agent of Christian charity.
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Fiction

Dekker Explores in The Priest's Graveyard
Glenn McCarty
A psychological thriller exploring justice, ethics, forgiveness, and the consequences of violence inside a twist-laden maze, The Priest's Graveyard is Ted Dekker at his finest.
Read the full article here


Today's Devotional

What Jesus Really Wants (from "HomeWord, with Jim Burns")
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away from me (Matt. 15:8).
"The longer you look at Jesus, the more you will want to serve Him in His world."
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Passover: A Time for Spiritual Cleansings

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Wednesday, April 20, 2011 Email Send to a Friend   Mobile Mobile
Israel Insights

Passover: A Time for Spiritual Cleansings
Passover: A Time for Spiritual Cleansings
Rabbi Daniel Jackson

During the last several weeks, the regular weekly reading of the Torah was accompanied by a series of special readings, starting with Parshat Shekalim that announces the annual obligation to pay the ritual half shekel tax for the maintenance of the Temple. In so doing, these readings proclaim that this year's holy season of Passover has begun.

In practical terms, in every Jewish home, this is the time to clean house. Chametz, or leavening, permitted throughout the year, suddenly becomes a thing of dread-forbidden in any quantity. At an increasing pace, culminating on the night before Passover, Jewish households search out even the smallest speck of Chametz and cast it out. This week, a neighbor removed the seats and mats from his car, practically to the rocker panels, thoroughly cleaning all traces of cookies, chips, and cake left by his children to and from school.

Most of us, however, wait until after Purim. Purim provides an opportunity to get rid of lots of Chametz-cakes, cookies, pasta, cereal, whiskey-anything with a leavening agent has got to go. We even give it away to our neighbors as "gifts of food". This is a perfect time for a celebration because, at least in my house, after Purim it all gets tossed.

The dietary restriction on eating leavened products extends beyond "bread" per se, and attaches to the active ingredient, the leavening agent referred to as Chametz. Often defined as a souring or fermenting ingredient in food, Chametz is permitted throughout the year in everything. From noon on the day before Passover begins, continuing for the next seven days, Chametz becomes forbidden.

Moreover, the prohibition of Chametz is not just with respect to food items but with anything with which Chametz has come in contact. Pots, pans, utensils, shelves, storage bins, computer keyboards, clothing, and any location where family members are likely to take food made with leavening requires thorough cleaning.

Spiritual Cleansing

From a spiritual perspective, this period of time before the Holy Festival of Passover, a time of preparation, is itself sacred . Holy times demand some sort of spiritual separation from everyday work and play. To demarcate the approach of sacred space and time, it is necessary to prepare our households as well as our selves.

Perhaps this is the reason that Chametz is invested with so much meaning and interpretation. More than simply a thing, Chametz is a process. At the surface level, Chametz is the process of fermentation when moisture comes in contact with grain and grain products. It is a souring agent that has many wonderful properties: one causes bread to rise and another improves the flavor of that combination of flour, water, oil, and salt.

Yet, Chametz is also associated with craving and excess. During sacred time and space, the goal is to pull back from personal desires and drives and focus on the spiritual side of existence. While fermentation creates wine, too much produces vinegar-in Hebrew, the lengthening of the vowel "a" transforms Chametz to Chometz-vinegar.

My wife's view is that adding Chametz to bread causes it to swell symbolic of pride, an ingredient in daily life that a little goes a long way. In small doses, pride manifests as self esteem; too much pride becomes arrogance-a souring agent in any social setting. During Passover, however, through eating the Bread of Affliction, we learn from the poor, who are without pride, in order to acquire a taste for humility.

Separation from Idol Worship

Underlying all of the explanations for the Passover process there remains one central question: Why do we celebrate the Passover? Rabbi Yeshayahu Horowitz, the author of the book The Two Tablets of the Covenant, directs our attention to Exodus 34: 17-18.

You shall make for yourself no molten gods. The Feast of Unleavened Bread shall you keep. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, as I commanded you, in the time of the month Aviv; for in the month Aviv you came out from Egypt.

That pretty much covers it. Keep the Feast of Unleavened bread for seven days in the spring to remember the Exodus because I, God, told you to do so. Clear? But, why is the prohibition of molten idols included with the observance of Passover? What is the association between idol worship and Chametz?

Return to God

At the core of Jewish life is the centrality of God. It is the first of the Ten Sayings.

I am the Lord your God, who have brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of servitude. You shall have no other gods before me. [Exodus 20: 2-3]

Anything that stands between God and each of us represents a barrier to our relationship with God. The very act of creating or molding things, actions, ideas, even our emotions into focal points that absorb our attention away from the Divine Presence is idol worship pure and simple. Among the reasons for the Exodus was, and still remains, our separation from idols and false gods.

When the quest for the material things in life, such as position, tenure, or fame, absorbs us so completely that we no longer see our way to God's gift of life, then we have created an idol as vile as the Golden Calf. It is that taste, not of the forbidden, but of excess, that is the message of this season. Just as we can make things holy, like Shabbat, we make things horrific. The choice is ours. Turn away or return to God's way. How do we do this? Well, we can start by casting out Chametz and watching with what we seek to fill our mouths.

Rabbi Daniel Jackson is frequent contributor to Travelujah.com. He lives in Efrat and is affiliated with the Center for Christian Jewish Understanding and Cooperation in Efrat where he teaches Christians on a host of topics related to furthering understanding of the Jewish roots of Christsianity. 

Travelujah is the only Christian social network focused on travel to Israel. People can learn, plan and share their Holy Land tour and travel experiences on Travelujah. For further information on Christian tourism to Israel  please contact Holy Land Tours - Travelujah.

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Finding freedom from slavery to sin

April 20, 2011

“Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.”

John 8:34-36

I heard about an old prospector who came out of the gold mines one day and there were some young cowboys who thought they’d have a little fun with him.

So they said, “Old man, have you ever danced?”

He said, “No, I don’t believe I have.”

So they pulled out their six-shooters and filled the ground with bullets and watched the old man dance a jig. But they didn’t notice that the old man had turned around to his mule and pulled out a double barrel shotgun.

So the prospector turned around and put it right in the nose of the lead cowboy and he said, “Young man, you ever kissed a mule?”

That young cowboy said, “Nope, but I’ve always wanted to!”

Now, that cowboy was free to do what he wanted, but he was under the control of the one who had the power, the man with the gun. And there are a lot of people today who are just like that cowboy with the devil wielding his control over them. They’re dominated and controlled by the world system and the god of this age. In fact, Jesus said that anyone who sins—that is, someone who is apart from him—is a slave of sin.

But Christ came and he set us free from sin. In Christ, you are no longer a sinner;  you are a saint who sometimes sins. So rest assured that Jesus has set you free from sin so you can live fully for him!

SIN ENSLAVES THOSE WHO LIVE IN IT. SO TRUST THAT CHRIST HAS SET YOU FREE IF YOU ARE IN HIM!


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OUR GIFT TO YOU!

 

Dear Friend,

I want to send you a special gift that will help make getting into God's Word easy for you or someone you care about.

It's a copy of the ESV Share the Good News New Testament, and I'd like to send it to you as my way of saying thanks for your online donation to PowerPoint Ministries.

This version of the New Testament includes reading plans and topical guides for locating key verses and passages, and it's perfect for people who are new to the Bible or those who like to find a quick Bible reference.

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Thank you for giving to help PowerPoint continue to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ!  --Jack Graham

 


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