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]Before God’s servants can stand in high places before men, they must first bow low before Him. Elijah, fresh from proclaiming God’s judgment to Ahab, might have felt indispensable to God’s plan. Yet the following command was unexpected: “Hide yourself.” The brook Cherith became Elijah’s place of humbling, where pride was stripped away, self-reliance was broken, and his soul learned the sweetness of depending on God alone.
God’s servants must learn to walk by faith–one step at a time. This is a simple lesson, yet one that challenges even the most faithful. Consider Elijah: before he left his quiet home in Thisbe to stand before King Ahab with the word of the Lord, how many questions must have stirred his heart!
As we continue our journey through the life of Elijah, let us take heart in this: Elijah was a man just like us. He was not born with heroic strength or unshakable resolve. He knew weakness, fear, and moments of failure—the same struggles we face. And yet, this one man, by faith, stood alone against a tide of sin and idolatry. By faith, he turned a nation back to God.
Over the past few years, some leaders who once inspired many have fallen into scandals that have brought harm and confusion to the body of Christ. In moments like these, it’s easy to feel disillusioned or lost, as if the work of God depends on human vessels who have failed us. But I’m reminded of how Elisha responded when Elijah was taken from him. His eyes were not on the departing servant but on the living God. “Where is the Lord God of Elijah?” he cried — not, “Where is Elijah?” That cry holds a lesson for us today: our hope and strength are not in human leaders, but in the God who works through them—and who remains faithful even when men falter.
The day before Israel launched Operation Rising Lion, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stood before the ancient stones of the Western Wall and placed a prayer in its crevices. He chose Numbers 23:24—a verse that declares a timeless truth: God calls Israel and His people everywhere to rise with strength, purpose, and courage, no matter what challenges they face.
When we read the Beatitudes, we catch a glimpse of Yeshua’s heart and the values that define His Kingdom. His words unveil the kind of life that God calls blessed—marked by humility, mercy, purity of heart, a hunger for righteousness, peacemaking, and faithful endurance in the face of suffering.
We often celebrate beginnings—new chapters, breakthroughs, divine appointments. But in God’s economy, every true beginning requires a holy crossing. Before the Hebrews could enter the Promised Land, they had to leave Egypt. Before they entered the Promised Land, they had to cross over the Red Sea. And before Abraham could receive God’s promises, he had to obey a single command: “Leave.”