“Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God for in the month of Abib, the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.”
-Deuteronomy 16:1
Think about why this command was so important to God’s people in the Old Testament and why it is so significant for your life and my life today. Let me read it again.
When we are prone to wander, it’s good to remember that God loves us so much.
Observe the month of Abib and keep the Passover to the Lord your God. For in the month of Abib the Lord your God brought you out of Egypt by night.
It was critical to God’s people, to their hearts, and to their life together to continually remember when and how God saved them. When and how God delivered them out of Egypt and continually remembering his salvation of them was key to their relationship with him. Did you hear that? Let me say that again. So this is where just the significance of this text comes in for your life and my life.
It is critical to continually remember when and how God saved you and this remembrance is key, critical to your walk with him on an ongoing basis, to your love for him, to your worship of him. This is why when I think about the Lord’s supper, and I think about how central it was in the church in the New Testament, which is why we should regularly observe it as we gather together as the church. Why? Because it is critical for us to remember when and how God has saved us through the blood of Jesus.
We’re intended to continually recount this in our minds and our hearts. When we are prone to wander, it’s good to remember that God loves us so much. He sent his son to die on a cross for us. We need that reminder every day, all day long. When we are prone to be weighed down by guilt, it is good to remember that we have been saved from our sin, that we have been forgiven by God through the blood of Jesus shed on a cross for our sin.
When we walk through our days, surrounded by people who don’t know the love of Jesus, it’s good for us to remember when and how God saved us so that we might share this good news with people around us. Continual remembrance of salvation, when and how God saved you, is critical to walking with God and worshiping God.
So God we pause in this moment based on Deuteronomy, Chapter 16, Verse One, and we praise you for how you have saved us. For how you have sent your son to live the life we couldn’t live and died a death we deserved to die on a cross for our sin. To rise from the grave in victory over sin. We praise you for what He did and what you have done by your spirit to draw us to yourself.
God, thank you for saving us. God, thank you for bringing us out of our sin and its consequences. To know you and enjoy you and walk with you. God, we praise you for the day when your spirit opened our eyes to the beauty of the gospel. We praise you and we will praise you for all of eternity over and over and over again as we continually remember your love for us.
And God, we pray that you’d help us to live out of the overflow of this remembrance today and when we are prone not to trust you, God help us to remember that we can trust you with our lives, not just now, but for all of eternity. God, we pray that when we are prone to be weighed down in guilt, that we would remember Romans, Eight, One. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
The law, the spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. God, we pray that as we’re around people today who don’t know your love in Jesus, God, we pray that our remembrance of your love would compel us by your spirit in us to share the good news of your love for others around us. God, we pray that you’d help us to open our mouths today and to share the good news of the gospel with people around us.
And God, we pray this for the Baloch of Pakistan who don’t know the gospel. They can’t remember the gospel because they’ve never heard it. We pray for millions of Baloch in Pakistan. In addition to billions of people around the world right now, and thousands of people groups who can’t remember your salvation because they don’t know it. They’ve never even heard about it.
God, we pray that you would cause the gospel to go to the Baloch in Pakistan and thousands of other people groups like them. God, we pray you’d help us as your people to make this gospel known so they might know it, believe it, receive it and remember it all the days of their life into eternity.
Jesus, we praise you today based on Deuteronomy, Chapter 16, Verse One, for saving us. God, we give you glory all over again and we will do so tomorrow and the next day and the next day for when and how you saved us from our sins. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
View the 2021 McLean Bible Church Reading Plan.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
