BROADCASTS.com

--This devotion appeared originally on the blog "Growing Into Up" by Jennifer Heidinga, who has made it available here with permission and now also as a podcast!--

"They will know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God." (Exodus 29:46)

At the start of the book of Exodus the Israelites were slaves in Egypt. God rises up a reluctant leader, Moses, and delivers his people from the hand of the Egyptians through miraculous acts (the plagues and the parting of the Red Sea). The people rejoice when the sea crashes over the Egyptian army, but quickly fall into sin and rebellion. That's how we often remember the Israelites in the wilderness...as a stubborn and rebellious people.

I can't help but feel like the Israelites at times. Stubborn. Rebellious. Done with facing all the giants. What is your Egypt? What are you clinging to that is no longer serving you? Is it a thought or attitude, a material item, a role? What are you stubbornly refusing to let go of that is causing you to rebel against what God desires for your life? In Exodus 29:46 it says that God delivered the Israelites out of their bondage so that they could be free to live in his presence, and this by God's grace alone, not through their own merit. God came to them as a pillar of fire by day and cloud by night. Once the tabernacle was built, God made his dwelling there in the midst of them in the Holy of Holies. Just as Christ came to \u201ctabernacle\u201d or dwell among us as well (John 1:14).

God wants to deliver us from our sinful ways, and he did that in what Christ accomplished on the cross. So now the veil separating us from the Holy of Holies is gone and we have free reign to come to God openly and without reservation. Give your Egypt to him. The weight of the "Black Lives Matter" movement and of the pandemic and anything that is weighing you down. Your stress, loneliness, feelings of insecurity, hopelessness, or despair. Christ paid the price so that we don't have to hang onto that stuff anymore. It's heavy. Too heavy for us to carry. We've already been delivered so we don't need to go back to our Egypt any more. God has made his presence here among us. Among his people. Nothing is stronger than God's power to deliver us and to keep us in his presence, which brings life and vitality to our hearts, minds, and souls, and comes to us through our relationship with Jesus.

\xa0