One of the most illustrative pictures of salvation is the deliverance of the Israelites from Egypt. Like us, before we met Christ, they were in bondage to slave drivers and life was hard. Their cries were heard by God and He sent a deliverer, one of their own, Moses, to lead them out of Egypt into the Promised land. Before this could happen, the blood of lambs had to be painted on the door frames of their houses to protect them from the angel of death in the last plague in Egypt.
Because God's children are human beings--made of flesh and blood--the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could he die, and only by dying could he break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Heb 2:14
Moses was a type of Christ, a deliverer, one of their own, and Christ too, became like a man to deliver us from Egypt, a representation of sin and bondage. The bible lets us that there is NO remission of sin without the shedding of blood.
In fact, according to the law of Moses, nearly everything was purified with blood. For without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness. Heb 9:22
All of us have fallen short of the glory of God (Roms 3:23), and there came a day, so troubled and bound by our own mess, we harkened to the voice of the Lord, surrendered our life to Jesus, fully accepting the gift of salvation that He purchased for us on the cross by the shedding of His blood, and came out of Egypt. At that very moment, potential to walk into the inheritance of our promised land and gain it, was born in our hearts.
But, like the Israelites, we find ourselves in the wilderness, bewildered by the emotions and trials that come up. We can learn something about the wilderness experience from the Israelites. The joy they experienced on the other side of the Red Sea was ecstatic and the same happens when we finally surrender our lives to Christ and meet Him in a sense for the first time.
The thing is, we all have a past and sometimes we allow the past to keep us trapped in it, and unable to move ahead, until, with the help of the Holy Spirit, memories and unresolved hurts that begin to come up are dealt with and healed through the restorative power of the cross. It takes surrender and a desire to move beyond our present pain into the glorious inheritance God has for us.
How we deal with our past, can be the catalyst to keep us there or move us forward. God had brought the Israelites into freedom, but the 400 years of being in bondage held them captive.
"How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who are grumbling against Me? I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel, which they are making against Me. Num 14:27
Grumbling and complaining kept the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years while the promised land awaited their arrival. It is interesting to note that God saw complaining as evil and against Him. He had delivered them and expected that they would trust Him as their provider and provision. It was in this period of time, that they saw the mighty miracles of God as they camped around His presence, but this stiff necked people found it hard to trust in God, their slavery mindset kept them focused on the circumstances instead of God’s Glory and God’s Mighty Hand.
For every problem they encountered in the wilderness, God had provision for them, bread from heaven, (Jn 6:48) water from the rock, (1 Cor 10:4) all a picture of Jesus, our provision, for the hunger and thirst of our broken hearts. Yet they tried to do things their own way, instead of trusting in God and complained instead of worshipping God. God is never manipulated by our complaining or emotional blackmail, He is only moved by our faith in Him.
God lived with them in the wilderness, camping with them and leading them, showing His faithfulness to a faithless people who were chosen by Him to show His glory. He wanted a people to know Him but they wanted to only know His acts and not His ways.
This is one of the keys to freedom. Knowing God and experiencing His love, mercy and faithfulness. God is our inheritance (Ps 16:5) and ultimately our final inheritance will be heaven with Him for eternity, but we have an inheritance right now on earth in and through Jesus Christ.
The LORD your God will drive those nations out ahead of you little by little. You will not clear them away all at once, otherwise the wild animals would multiply too quickly for you. Deut 7:28
This has been a challenging verse for me to understand but I was mediating on it and was thinking about suburbia and correlated this to the “spiritual” wilderness experience. God had a promised land awaiting His people and the actualisation of their inheritance and the rest they would finally experience in the land of milk and honey was a reality as soon as they crossed the Red Sea. But, to get the slavery mindset out of them, God had to let them experience battles, little by little to get them ready for larger battles.
Just as humans begin building a suburb and the animals that live there have to find another place to live, I saw this as the battles that we face in conquering our “wild animals” so that little by little, Christ (who is our inheritance) can inhabit us more and more as He builds His Kingdom principles into our lives. How we surrender to His healing for the past “wild animals” that can haunt us will be how quickly we become strong in faith, reliant upon Him and submit to the sanctifying process and presence in our lives to become mature Christians. And what does it take? A renewed mind.
Someone said, God is obligated to fulfil His promises but not obligated to fulfil our potential. This is so true because we have a part to play in the renewal of our minds, so that more and more, we begin to see things with the mind of Christ. Our potential to be all God wants us to be, and to do, is there as soon as we are saved but we need to grow into it as revelation, healing and a renewal of our minds takes place. Seeing circumstances and even our past hurts through the mind of Christ, and seeing His provision and promises for every one, will bring the peace that surpasses all understanding and healing.
We have to bank the Word of God in our hearts, so that we are able to make withdrawal in the time of need. His word will bring comfort, strength, faith and rest. We will not be conformed to the world as we renew our minds, but His Kingdom ways, will begin to be firmly established in our conduct, passion and praise for Him. It all starts with, listening to the voice of the Lord, and being humble and willing to change, as we begin to recognise His voice in the love letter, His word He has given to us. It is growing in and understanding that we are who He says we are, and He is who is says He is, and He is faithful to reward those who diligently seek Him.
