Dear Family,
Today is Thursday, May 23, 2024. It is Day 26 and Day 5 of Week 4 in our Count to Pentecost.
In the weeks following their deliverance from Egyptian bondage, the Israelites witnessed God‛s generosity, power, and protection. Yet, witnessing these things was not enough to humble them or bind them to God. Why?
It seems the Israelites brought a different kind of bondage with them out of Egypt. Their deliverance was out of physical bondage. The bondage they continued to have was a bondage in their flesh. They continued to be enslaved. Speaking of our spiritual deliverance through Jesus Christ, the Apostle Paul wrote that we need “to be dead” to sin so we can be “alive unto God” and be bound to Him and serve Him instead.
Romans 6:11-12 (11) Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. (12) Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.
The Apostle makes it really plain in this same chapter (Romans 6) that we “serve” (and are in bondage to) whatever it is that we obey (yield ourselves to).
Romans 6:16-18 (16) Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness? (17) But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. (18) Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness.
God delivered Israel from physical slavery to make a physical nation of them. And, He recorded these events for our example… so we would not “lust” after evil things as they “lusted.”
1 Corinthians 10:6, 11 (6) Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted. (11) Now all these things happened unto them for examples: and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.
God delivers us from many things, including the “bondage” kind of power that sin has over us because of our flesh (lusts) that make us vulnerable to sin and death.
Romans 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
We can thank God that today we can be free indeed. Let us “stand fast” in our liberty! Praise God!
Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage.
Ben Faulkner, Pastor
@ Copyright 2024, Church of the Sovereign God