The Great Liberator

“The Israelites had done all the work just as the LORD had commanded…Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the LORD had commanded.  So Moses blessed them” Exodus 39:42-43.

Well, well, well.  After a year of rollercoaster faith…up the hill of obedience followed by the out of control drop of rebellion comes the close of their year.  For 365 days they were tested and tried… instructed and commanded…sinful and forgiven.  It wasn’t pretty but it was their faith journey and they had finished strong in the Lord!

I only have to look at my own challenging seasons to see the same thing we have witnessed in Exodus.  God rescued me from something that had imprisoned me, but at the cost of my comfort and security.  I walked the journey grumbling and complaining but following in His footsteps.  I don’t know who was more exhausted during these seasons, me from worrying and calculating or God from patiently waiting and refining me.  My transforming faith walk has been anything but pretty just like the Israelites, but it has been something shared just between me and God…Father and daughter…the Liberator and the liberated. 

I am confident that some of you are entering into the wilderness, are presently walking it out or are thankfully leaving that challenging terrain.  You can be encouraged that God isn’t looking for perfection in the desert, but looking for spiritual progression in our hearts and in my minds.  He is calling us to fellowship and inscribing upon our hearts our own set of commandments by which to live.  The most important commandment is still to love Him with every part of our mind, heart and spirit.  The things He chisels upon our hearts during these tough times will be a part of us forever.  At the end of our trial we will bring everything to Him for the final inspection like the Israelites did laying it before Him for His blessing.  We will be blessed by the painful and fearful journey that He has taken us on.  We will learn more in the uncertain times that in the calm and stable times.  And what we learn and who we became in Christ will be our blessing.

‘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’ Ex 29:46. ‘I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD. They will be my people, and I will be their God, for they will return to me with all their heart’ Jeremiah 24:7.