experience gift

Monday March 11^th, Joshua 5:  10 On the evening of the fourteenth day of the month, while camped at Gilgal on the plains of Jericho, the Israelites celebrated the Passover. 11 The day after the Passover, that very day, they ate some of the produce of the land: unleavened bread and roasted grain. 12 The manna stopped the day after they ate this food from the land; there was no longer any manna for the Israelites, but that year they ate of the produce of Canaan.  After 40 years in the wilderness and the “men of war that came forth out of Egypt, perished, because they did not hearken the voice of the Lord,” a new beginning was about to take place.  All the men born in the wilderness were circumcised at Gilgal and after a time of healing, all celebrated the Passover, the celebration of the deliverance from bondage and the meal of freedom.  No longer did the Lord hand feed them with the gift of manna from the heavens, instead they were able to experience gift of a new life that lay before them.  It was the gift of new life that comes from the land and labors or their hands.  Transitions from death to life, from bondage to freedom, from what was to what will be, are times of celebration, and this was a time of celebration that would be remembered for thousands of years.  Worship is also a celebration of those transitions from death to life, from bondage to freedom.  Worship is the recognition and celebration of the presence of God in your life and the call to move on in the freedom to be and live as the child of God you have been called to be.