God Our Deliverer, Part 2

Exodus 3:8a So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey….

Colossians 1:13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love….

Romans 6:18-19 And having been set free from sin, you became slaves of righteousness… For just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

The longer we walk with Christ, the more we realize how much we have been delivered from: sin, the wrath of God, judgment, Satanic bondage, bitterness, unforgiveness, being members of the kingdom of darkness—the list is nearly endless. As we become more familiar with His Word, we realize that deliverance is at the heart of His gracious ministry to His people. The Lord delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and slavery, and now in Christ we have been delivered from sin, its effects and the judgments attached to it.

But for Israel, deliverance from was only Step One. God didn’t free Israel to just party in the wilderness, proclaiming her freedom from Egypt and its restraints. Deliverance to “the good and large land” was God’s ultimate concern.

It’s the same with us. We have been delivered from because God’s plan was to deliver us to something. God didn’t free us to simply spend the rest of our lives rejoicing only because of our freedom from yesterday’s bondages. He frees us so we can enter our own Promised Land here on earth. In God’s eyes, it’s a continuous process; we are being delivered out of things as we are being delivered into other things.

Take another look at Romans 6 (above) and think of the many members we have that can be presented to God as slaves of righteousness. Of course there are our outward actions, where we give instead of take, love instead of judge, and serve others before we serve ourselves.

Yet there is so much more. How about our tongues, which need to be changed from expressing “corrupt word[s] into…what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers.”? (Ephesians 4:29) How about our hearts themselves, that have been formerly set on the things of this earth, but are now being transformed into being set on things above? (Colossians 3:2) That process is a delightful deliverance that will take the rest of our lives.

There comes a point where our gratitude and joy for what we came out of becomes the impetus to press in to those things that we have yet to receive as our inheritance. Let’s never stop being grateful for what’s past, but let’s be energized to lean into our futures.

Prayer: Lord, thank You for Your deliverance from and deliverance to. May I grow ever more grateful for the former and ever more encouraged to press into the latter.