Searching for Hametz

Create in me a clean heart, O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

---Psalm 51:12

Cleaning out the cabinets to remove `hametz` for Passover!

Warning:  This posts contains hametz! *

"No one wants to see garbage on the floor", my daughter said when she saw me taking a picture of the last crumbs of hametz.

"You`re right!,"  I said.

 Then to confirm the wise reply she gave, I told her in the same way no one wants to see my picture of the crumbs on the floor,  we often do not want to see the `hametz` that is collected in our hearts.  `Hametz` is `leaven` in food.  As it is the item that makes food `puff up`, it can also can be seen to represent prideful things, sin, uncleanliness those desires that, like leaven,  `puff`` us up with human pride.  Those things that need to be removed from our heart..

Its`s not that I wanted to show the dirt either, there are so many beautiful cherry blossom pictures I can be posting in today`s postl!  But we have a mission on Passover to clear out the hametz from our house.

 Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, but on the first day you shall remove leaven from your houses..."       ----Exodus 12:15

 I wanted to show a little of that as part of my `reporting` on the celebration of Pesach (Passover).  As well as  to include it for my own `diaristic` discoveries of what I am learning through observing the holiday!  In past Passovers I have observed the commandment to eat unleavened bread, but this is the first year I did more of a cleansing and clearing with the understanding of how it also is about cleaning in our hearts ( 1Corinthians 5:7~8).

 We have to look in our cabinets to see what is in them. We have to look at the `sin` before we can get rid of it.  In the same way as the cabinet clearing, we have to ask God to show us the sin and places that need to be repented of and cleared. So that we can celebrate the feast with `the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.`. (also 1Corinth 5:7~8)

There is even a Jewish custom where the night before Pesach we are to take a flashlight and do a hametz search!! To see if there were any breads, cookies, even crumbs that were overlooked that contain leaven!!  I never did it before but I may do it this year.

I love it because it is like what David asks God to do when he asks the LORD to search his heart, in Psalm 139:

Search me, O God, and know my heart.

Examine me, and know

my anxious thoughts,

and see if there be any offensive way within me,

and lead me in the way everlasting.

---Psalm 139:23~24 TLV

I love it because it is what Yeshua came to do.  In this Passover season, we see how the freedom from Egypt in the Exodus is a shadow of the freedom from bondage that was to come through Yeshua.

The next day, John sees Yeshua coming to him and says, 

"Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!

---John 1:29, TLV

May we check our cabinets for any last crumbs, and if you dare...behind the refrigerator!!

This Passover season, I pray great renewal for each one of us and that we let Yeshua into our life to start if you haven`t started, and if you have, to keep on and to ask Him to clean out every remaining `crumb` of hametz in our hearts.

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive our sins and purify us from all un-righteousness.

--1John 1:9

When our hearts are full of leaven, no matter how much we say or do `good` deeds, they are coming from a place of sin so we are not effective.  When our efforts are from an un-repentant heart of `leaven` we are doing the greatest sin of all, which is being separate from God, even as we `think` we are doing `good`.  His desire is that we be holy as He is Holy.  What a world it is when this begins to happen!!

There is still time to clear and to get the flashlights out!!

And nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.  ---Revelation 21;27

All Leaven (Hametz) has to be removed before the first day of Passover.  This yeast will go into the Challah for tonight`s Shabbat and any remaining has to be removed from the premises!!

May you be blessed in this season, and have a Happy Pesach!!

Shabbat Shalom!!

Hametz clearing notes:
Is it ok to have soy sauce during Passover?
It depends who you ask.   Some strict regulations say no, and many I am sure would say yes.  For a good article on the intricacies of what is Leaven from the scriptural perspective, this is a good article that my friend just shared with me, so do have a look if you would like to read more HERE!

For a good overview of Preparing for Passover, you can search around or try reading the article HERE!

For an inspiring post on the same topic of clearing our homes and hearts, enjoy this post on Redemption Songs HERE.

Wheat-Free Soy Sauce!!

Can you spot the wheat-free in this Sea of soy sauces!

There are those who say yes and those who say no.  I think as we are led to clear things for the Passover,  we will be guided by the Holy Spirit, as the `clearing` is an act of obedience to ADONAI by observing the command in Exodus 12.   I may have gotten carried way to go so far as the wheat in soy sauce,  but in the search there is always something we learn.  As we are learning, and searching, its possible some non-hametz may just go out along with it too!