Exodus 12:2-3 “This month shall be for you the beginning of months. It shall be the first month of the year for you. 3 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.
There is something deeply powerful in the way God introduces Passover (Pesach) in Exodus. He does not begin with a list of instructions. He begins with divine intervention. Israel is enslaved, bound under Pharaoh, and crushed beneath a system they have no power to escape. Yet right in the middle of that helplessness, God speaks: “This month shall be for you the beginning of months.”
In that moment, God reveals a dual prophetic reality. On one level, He is establishing His calendar — declaring Nisan as the first month, the beginning of months for Israel. But on a deeper level, He is declaring something far more personal: this is the beginning of your spiritual life. Redemption becomes the true starting point of existence. Life is no longer defined by bondage, but by deliverance.
And how does this beginning unfold? It starts with a Lamb. The choosing of the lamb, the applying of the blood, and even the precise timing of the sacrifice all carry profound prophetic weight. God is not only delivering Israel — He is unveiling a pattern of redemption that would echo through all generations.
The Hebrew name for Egypt, Mitzrayim (מִצְרַיִם), means a narrow place, a place of restriction. Israel was not only physically trapped but spiritually confined. Yet God does not wait for them to break free. He declares that He Himself will come into the midst of Egypt. This pattern echoes throughout all Scripture and finds its ultimate fulfillment in Yeshua (Jesus). God does not stand at a distance demanding ascent; He enters the prison to bring deliverance. He steps into bondage so that His people can step into freedom.
The very word Passover — Pesach (פֶּסַח) — reveals the heart of God. It means to pass over, to hover over, to protect. This is not passive avoidance but active covering. When God says He will pass over, He is not merely skipping houses; He is standing guard over them. Judgment is moving through Egypt, yet wherever the blood is present, God positions Himself as a shield. This is more than deliverance — it is covenant protection. It is God declaring that where the blood is applied, His presence will stand between His people and destruction.
God then does something astonishing: He resets time itself. “This month shall be the beginning of months.” Redemption becomes the starting point of Israel’s calendar. In Hebraic understanding, time is not merely chronological — it is covenantal. Life is not defined by natural birth but by redemption. This is why the New Covenant echoes the same truth: in Yeshua, all things become new. Passover is not simply an event to remember; it is a divine reset of identity, purpose, and destiny.
And at the center of it all stands the lamb. Israel did not suggest it, and Moses did not invent it. God provided it. This introduces the deeper Hebraic reality of the sacrifice — in Hebrew, Korban (קרבן)— means to draw near. The sacrifice is not about loss but about access. Even in Exodus, the root truth is clear: man does not create access to God; God provides the means to draw near to Him. This is why the Gospel is not built on human effort but on divine provision.
This is where everything begins. Before cleansing the house, before walking in holiness, before understanding deeper truths, there must be an encounter with the God who delivers. And there is an urgency here that cannot be ignored. You cannot deliver yourself from Egypt. You cannot reason your way out of bondage or improve yourself into freedom. God must step in –and the good news is that He already has. The same God who entered Egypt has entered humanity through Yeshua. The same God who stood between judgment and His people has provided the blood that still speaks today.
Beloved, You don’t have to wonder if God will show up. He already has. The real invitation is to recognize His presence in the middle of what you’re walking through. Redemption doesn’t start when you finally get everything right or reach high enough—it begins the moment you realize that God has already come near to you, already made a way, already stepped in on your behalf. Right where you are — He is there. And this can truly be your beginning.
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]We have seen that names have significant meanings, and as discussed earlier, Elimelech, whose name means “My God is King”, left Bethlehem with Naomi his wife and their two sons. The birth of these two boys must have brought joy and happiness, yet, having perished in Moab actually caused their very names to lose their original meanings.
As we commemorate the 80th anniversary of D-Day, leaders from around the world gather to honor those who served and died to deliver Europe and the world from the Nazis during World War 2.
During the Biblical festival of Shavuot, the book of Ruth is read. It’s a powerful story of faith, restoration and redemption. The book opens with a famine in all the land surrounding Bethlehem, forcing a difficult decision upon Naomi’s husband, Elimelech. Now, Bethlehem (beth: “house”, lechem: “bread”) literally means “house of bread”, so the irony of Elimelech’s departure from his home, “house of bread”, during a famine, is lost on English speaking readers, but reveals that every detail in the word of God can be meaningful, especially the meanings of names.
The Lord is quoted in this scripture in Matthew and it contains an important principle which I think we sometimes tend to overlook. Many believe and even teach that if someone acquires much material prosperity, then God has surely given them favor, and that if someone is undergoing extreme trial, it must be because they have sinned or that they lack faith. But the Lord says that the sun rises and the rain falls on both the righteous and the unrighteous alike. A life of good circumstances does not necessarily mean that God is with us. And likewise, a life of trial and suffering does not mean that God is not with us!
One of my favorite ministers of the Gospel is D.L. Moody. He tells a story about having heard Pastor Henry Varley once say that, “The world has yet to see what God will do with and for and through the man who is fully and wholly consecrated to Him.”
The African Impala (an African antelope) are amazing creatures that can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance greater than 30 feet. Yet Impalas can be kept in a zoo inside an enclosure with a simple 3 foot wall. Why? Impalas will not jump if they can’t see where their feet will land. Do we have something in common with these antelopes? Able to take great leaps of faith, but refusing to do it unless we can see where we’ll land?
So often in our walks with the Lord, we become focused on what we can see, what we can hear and what we can sense in the physical realm. Like that young man, we focus on the enemy’s attacks around and about us. At times we can get so focused on our physical circumstances that we forget that the Lord has already provided for us the victory!