Your glorying is not good. Know ye not that a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump? Purge out therefore the old leaven, that ye may be a new lump, as ye are unleavened.
- 1 Corinthians 5:6-7
Here scripture gives a hint of what we allow in our homes and lives. The Bible speaks a lot about leaven, but what is it? Leaven wasn't to be used in sacrifices (Leviticus 2:11), nor were working priests allowed to partake of it. (Leviticus 6:11). One reason was that auto-brewing could occur in the stomach, giving the appearance of drunkenness. Leaven was and is used to make bread rise. We find packets of flatbreads in supermarkets in which they don't use leaven. Therefore they remain flat, unlike a typical loaf of bread. It doesn't take much leaven to puff up bread full of air where gasses become trapped in the loaf. And it doesn't take much sin to permeate our whole life, turning us into something grander than we are.
God uses leaven as a cautionary illustration of sin. When we let in a small amount, we find that it has made its way into many parts of our lives over time. We find we tolerate sin, and we are not aware of it.
Jesus warns of the leaven of the Pharisees, where we become hypocrites with false holiness. We attend church and hear scriptures but have no use for them other than to be seen as if we are taking notice.
In our key scripture, Paul chastises the Corinthian Church, which tolerated the leaven of sin. He went on to say that if they allowed a little bit of sin, it wouldn't be long before they accepted a lot more of it.
When we do our Spring house cleans, why don't we also see what we've allowed into our lives that shouldn't be there?
As an alternative to sin, Jesus used leaven as an example of what the Kingdom of Heaven can do if let it rise within us. When we allow the leaven of the Kingdom to do its job, it grows within us until our entire life—all thoughts and actions and prayers—are taken up with things of the Kingdom, to the Glory of God. Matthew 13:33.
Today's prayer: Dear Lord, thank you for reminding me of how easy it is to let leaven into my life. Please help me find every bit of it and sweep it out. Also, please help me let the leaven of your Kingdom permeate every part of me until I have given up all thought of anything else.