THE MAIN IDEA
God fills our hearts with joy when we celebrate in Christ.

CHRIST IS OUR SALVATION
Passover is a regularly scheduled reminder and celebration  of God’s salvation of His people. God commanded the Israelites to celebrate the Passover every  year. It commemorates the deliverance of the Israelites out of bondage in Egypt. Their  deliverance out of Egypt is definitely worth remembering and celebrating. But more than that,  Passover is a powerful reminder of God’s unfailing and uncompromising faithfulness to always  save His covenant people. This world is a broken mess because of sin, and so sometimes, we  have to face some serious struggles and trials in our lives. In those seasons of doubt, we must  remember this: Through faith, we have direct access to the Passover Lamb Himself, Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ is our salvation, and our only salvation! And Jesus Christ will always save His  people (Romans 10:13). 

CHRIST IS OUR HOLINESS
Before participating in the Passover, the priests and the  Levites had to purify themselves, and everyone who ate the Passover had to separate themselves  from the unclean practices of the peoples around them. That restriction has to do with the idea of  holiness. Holiness means to be set apart from the ways of the world and set apart for the purposes  and the ways of God. It is impossible to seek the Lord, let alone see the Lord, without holiness (Hebrews 12:14). And holiness can be developed by the spiritual disciplines that God has given  to us—reading and studying God’s word, prayer, worship, serving the church, evangelism and  missions, even fellowship in Jesus’s name. Given that, it is good to make resolutions regarding  our spiritual disciples and to make every effort to turn those disciplines into habits. The key is to  reflect on our motivations and to ask ourselves: “Who am I becoming with the habits that I now  have,” and then, “Who do I want to become and what habits will get me there?” If we do not  want to become like Jesus Christ, we will not become like Jesus Christ. We should use every tool  at our disposal to establish good spiritual habits in order to become like Jesus. 

CHRIST IS OUR JOY
When we read the Bible, we come to realize that God loves it when  His people get together and celebrate. There seems to be little distinction from celebrating in the  Lord and worship. A life of worship is a life of rejoicing, especially when we rejoice together as  the people of God, the church. Every healthy, normal person pursues happiness. But do we really  feel joy when we follow Jesus Christ? John Piper says, “God is most glorified in us when we are  most satisfied in Him.” He goes on to say that our problem in this world is not that we want to be  happy. Our problem is we think that we have to choose between having happiness and having  God at the center of our lives. But the Bible tells us that the greatest joy that we can experience  in this world is to have God at the center of our lives. So we should pray for ourselves and for  one another that we would be a people whose greatest joy would be to serve the Lord and to  build up His church together. And when God answers that prayer, He will replace our current  happiness with a much greater happiness, so that our lives would overflow with divine joy. 

DISCUSSION QUESTION
What are some habits that may lead you away from Jesus?