After the Israelites reach the Promised Land, one of their leaders, Joshua, dies and a new generation is birthed. We read in Judges how the Israelites then went through this period of forgetting what God had done for them. It’s incredible, isn’t it? They witnessed God do the miraculous; were delivered out of Egypt and their lifelong slavery, and still forgot about the holiness of God.
And haven’t we done the same as well?
In their forgetfulness, they begin to worship other gods instead of the One who rescued them out of slavery. They go back and forth between lesser gods and asking the One and only God to send them a rescuer and a judge. But I don’t think God ever intended for the Israelites to struggle in the bond and ravages of sin and other idols when He offered more than just freedom from Pharaoh, but also freedom from anything less than Him. We often get caught in a cycle like the Israelites. When we let ourselves make compromise after compromise, and put lesser things in the place of God, the chasm between us and Him widens and sin can take root.
But we tend to water sin down and reduce it to a funny mishap, when in reality sin is what separates us from a Holy God. Sin actually disconnects us from the Light. How weighty should we then look at sin? And how terrible it would be to separate from our only Rescue.
And here comes our God who wants us to be free from anything that would separate us from Him. It’s not a matter of filling out an application to see if we’re approved of before we become free. It’s already set; He’s already done the work. He took the victory over death and the grave and handed resurrection power to us so we too could live free. We have power over sin because Jesus broke the power of sin when He walked out of that grave, glorious and ready to offer freedom to everyone who wanted it. To everyone who would cry out for it. You have to want to be liberated. God will always call us as we’re meant to be-a conqueror, loved, healed-and not whatever pit we might be in at the moment; when we start to believe that, things will shift. When we can say, no…this is not who I’m supposed to be, we can cry out to God and cry out for His freedom and He will answer that call. Our surrender opens the doors for our freedom.
We will be tempted, of course. And we are not a perfect people, but God tells us to resist sin and to stand our ground against the enemy and the enemy will take off. That sounds like a promise of how God will then show up with all of His might and victory and power and deliverance ready to hold ground with us.
“Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.” -Galations 5:1 {MSG}