7/26 Getting ‘Egypt’ out of our Heart
Getting ‘Egypt’ out of the hearts of the Israelites was one of the hardest lessons for Jehovah God to teach His people. Back there, they were slaves, and servants – without any authority over their own life. They had the mind-set of being in servitude to what was around them. Egypt was their Master! They really believed: “I don’t have a say so I can’t achieve much …”. As a result, they were limited, restricted and certainly not where God wanted them to be for the future. Slave they were and slave they lived.
One of the main aims with Father God for us today is to help us spot where ‘Egypt’ is still in our heart. In fact, this is the main theme of ‘Sanctification’ – to show us who we really are in Christ Jesus. In our pain and questioning, we too can grumble and complain – even lose our peace and hope in this God of love. We can so get our eyes on our situations, we seem to lose Jesus. The twelve tribes visited a place in their journey called Marah in Exodus 15:22, a place of bitter waters. So the Lord also takes us into places where the circumstances seem so hostile to His message of love. The underlying reason? … to move us from the mentality of Egypt into the destiny of Sonship. He is working to get Egypt out of us, out of the self. Until we get this revelation, it is hard to let go, to let our heart see hope. We as Jesus Followers, also need to learn to live at this level. We all have faced and will face these ‘bitter waters’. It’s when we hit a spot where ‘Egypt’ still resides in our heart, we react with the Egypt mind-set. With every problem, comes a promise and then the provision to help us cross over from the slavery that belong in Egypt. He calls us into a new mentality, a kingdom mentality. We are sitting in heavenly places, far above every principality and power. We are to be the head and not the tail. We must learn our real place of authority and who we are in Christ Jesus. We can build that kind of mentality into ourselves and into the group. We can give permission for failure, to reach out to God and let Him bring us through that bitter place. Otherwise, people sink and live on the bottom of bitter waters, underneath their problems. They can become “Blurb … God …. Blurb … help me … blurb, blurb … “ sinking and doubting Christians. We can learn how to be strong, courageous followers of Jesus who rise above circumstances to fulfil the call of God on our lives. It helps to allow His mind-set to grow deep within. God’s aim is to help get Egypt and its way of thinking out of our heart! Let’s learn to work with Him on this journey.
(Adapted from a talk by Peter McHugh, Crossway Conference, October, 2003)
Susanne Fengler, Blog Author
www.christianfoundations.jesus-treeoflife.info
Tags: Getting Egypt out of our Heart
Filed under: From Slave to Sonship
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