Part 8. We like the idea of freedom for prisoners and the oppressed, but we forget the power of Freedom in the life of the Believer. When we give up our Freedom, when we choose to walk another way, we let go of the most basic building blocks of life in Christ. A life without Freedom is a life stuck in a dangerous place.
The Narrow Road Paradox, Part 1.
Jesus told us that salvation is traveling a narrow road leading to life. We have different ideas of the road being dangerous, tight, and unforgiving. When God tells us to incorporate two elements of life that seem contrary to each other, we need to learn how they work together to speed us on the narrow road.
Moses is a key figure of both Jewish and Christian history. If it were not for Moses, the people of God would have remained slaves until God brought in another deliverer. When it comes to Moses’ work as the one who rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, we often think first of the burning bush. There Moses encountered God and heard God’s call to save His people from Pharaoh.
But long before the burning bush Moses had made a key decision. If he were to face this choice and choose differently, Moses would not have led the people out of Egypt to the Promised Land. Thankfully, Moses chose the path he did.
Continue reading “Choosing Between Two Lives (Hebrews 11:24-27)”
One of the greatest people in the history of Israel is Moses. Through him God delivered His chosen people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. He led them through the desert, gave them the Ten Commandments and all the laws of God.
But Moses’ life almost ended long before God could have done any of these through him. When he was born there was a law in Egypt to kill the male children born to Hebrew women. Moses should have died after he was born. Hebrews 11 tells us how Moses was spared the death that waited for him.
By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict. (Hebrews 11:23)
It was the faith of Moses’ parents that saved him. They trusted God more than they feared the laws of Egypt. Before that, their faith gave them a gift that we should learn to use in our own lives.
By faith Joseph, when his end was near, spoke about the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and gave instructions about his bones. (Hebrews 11:22)
What do you plan for? How far down the calendar do you look from day to day? What do you know is coming, even when it feels very far away in terms of months, days or hours?
In this way, all of our future planning is based on faith. We have confidence in what we do not see: time. We are sure of what we hope for: that day or season that we love. God wants us to plan for our futures with faith in Him and His promises to us.
Like his father, Isaac, Jacob understood the power of God’s blessings and covenant. As he neared his own death he made plans to pass along God’s covenant to his own sons.
Jacob, though, was already seeing the blessing take shape. Where his grandfather, Abraham, had passed the promise to his one son of promise, Jacob had twelve sons. Though Isaac had blessed one son over the other and foreseen two separate nations, Jacob looked at his sons and saw the fathers of one nation.
But the book of Hebrews does not address the blessings and prophecies spoken by Jacob over his sons in Genesis 49. Instead we are pointed towards a special blessing given to two grandsons, Ephraim and Manasseh, the sons of Joseph.
Chris MacKinnon 