Coming Out of Your Spiritual Egypt

As Christians live in the last days, there must be a seriousness about their relationship with God.  There must be a determination, a drive within them, an attitude of serving God with no option of turning back.  Christians should be the opposite of how the children of Israel acted coming out of Egypt and during their time in the wilderness.  Egypt is defined as troubles, oppression, anguish, pain, distress, or anxiety.  When Pharaoh let God’s people go, God led them through the wilderness toward the Red Sea (Exodus 13:18).  To even get to this point, the children of Israel had gone through water being turned to blood, an invasion of frogs, an invasion of gnats/lice, swarms of flies, pestilence of livestock, plague of boils, plague of hail, invasion of locusts, plague of darkness, and the death of the firstborns (Exodus 7-12).  None of these issues seems to be a victory in the making, yet there was a victory on the way.  To guide the children of Israel, God gave them a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night (Exodus 13:21-22).  For everything God does for the children of Israel, crossing the Red Sea on dry ground, bringing water out of a rock, feeding them with heavenly bread, feeding them with quail from the sky, delivering them from Egypt, one would think these people would be so determined to serve God for the rest of their lives.

            The children of Israel came out of Egypt in their bodies, but their hearts were still in Egypt.  They complained to either stay in Egypt or return to Egypt at least 12 times (Exodus 5, 14, 15, 16, 17, 32; Numbers 11, 12, 14, 16, 20, 21).  Let’s look at some of the reasons why the children of Israel wanted to leave God and go back to Egypt.  Their perception of a lack of food and water, instead of believing God who parted the Red Sea for them to supply their needs (Exodus 14).  Being put in difficult circumstances, instead of believing in God, who drowned an entire army that sought to kill them (Exodus 14).  They allowed doubt and fear to rule them, instead of walking in faith with the God who had proven Himself time and time again.  They desired to go back to Egypt after disagreeing with their God-ordained leaders instead of reminding themselves of their prayers for those leaders to deliver them from Egypt (Exodus 3:9-10).  The children of Israel wanted to go back to Egypt after getting bored with God and committing idolatry, and were confronted about their decision to turn away from God.  None of these reasons sounds legitimate, especially knowing how much God had helped them throughout this time in their lives. 

            For Christians on this side of the cross, not much has changed to some degree.  Christians still get bored with God and seek to be entertained, find another social event, or be religious by going to church, but still do not have a proper relationship with God.  Christians, at times, complain about the hard circumstances of people talking about them on social media or in the community.  Or they allow doubt and fear to creep into their lives, attempting to keep them from church or away from God.  Even when they disagree with God-ordained leaders in their lives, they desire to go back to Egypt.  Returning to Egypt looks like leaving the issues that cause pain, distress, oppression, and anxiety, but then returning to those very things when something arises that presents difficulty or discomfort.  God has not called His people to be comfortable, but to move forward with Him to victory (1 Corinthians 10:1-13).  For more information about Abundant Grace Church, visit agcsparta.org.