Partake with your belt and shoes on, staff in one hand

Exodus 12:11
11 And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the LORD's Passover.

You don't eat your dinner with your belt and shoes on, and staff in one hand -- unless you are in a hurry to go somewhere.

The Lord told the children of Israel to eat their first Passover in this manner because they were indeed going on a journey the next morning. They were leaving Egypt, the land in which they had become slaves oppressed by a cruel Pharaoh, a type of Satan, for a land flowing with milk and honey. They were going to leave behind their ruthless task masters (a picture of demons), chains, bondages, heavy yokes, sicknesses and poverty.

On the morning of their departure, God gave them so much grace (God's undeserved favour) that their Egyptians neighbours gladly gave them all their silver and gold items. All they had to do was ask for them! (Exodus 12:36)

And the Bible tells us that not one of them was feeble when they left because they had fed on the flesh of the roasted lamb (Psalm 105:37), which represents the Lamb of God judged for our sins by the fire and wrath of God. Young or old, they all left healthy -- and wealthy!

How does this apply to us today? When we partake of the Lord's Supper, we are to eat with our belts and shoes on, and staff in our hands. That is a picture of partaking in faith! We are to eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood expecting our miracle to happen and ready for it! That should be the spirit in which we partake of the Lord's Supper.

And we are to eat in this manner even though the circumstances around us may be totally negative and frightening. There was death, wailing and screaming that dark night in Egypt when the firstborn sons who were not covered by the lamb's blood were being struck down by the angel of death.

Egypt represents the world in the Bible. Even when everyone else around you is dying, even when there is fear everywhere, you are to feed on the Lamb's body in faith because you are in this world but not of this world. (John 17:16)

You are to eat the bread and drink the wine expecting and prepared to receive your miracle! For you will soon leave behind oppression, bondages, addictions, depression, sicknesses, poverty -- the works of Satan in your life -- for the promised land that God will show you.

You will come out of the world, out of Satan's stranglehold, healthy and wealthy, by the flesh and blood of the Lamb who was slain for your freedom, and move to a land flowing with milk and honey, where you will drink from wells you did not dig, and live in houses you did not build -- a picture of God's perfect rest, which is you resting in His Son's finished work at Calvary! (Hebrews 4:3)