For four hundred years, Israel was enslaved by Egyptian taskmasters who oppressed them and ‘made their lives bitter’ (Exodus 1:14 KJV). And we can understand their feelings of helplessness when we consider the areas in our own lives where we struggle for freedom from old habits. Whether it’s anger, food, alcohol, drugs, sex, money, or unhealthy relationships, we experience a sense of powerlessness in our struggle. And if we keep trying and failing to escape, we come up against increased feelings of hopelessness that lead us to give up trying altogether. But the Israelites cried out to God, and He responded: ‘I have…seen the misery of my people…I have heard them crying out…and I am concerned about their suffering.’ Today God sees you, God hears you, and God is concerned about you. He said, ‘I have come down to rescue them…and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land…flowing with milk and honey’ (Exodus 3:8 NIV). Notice, He had ‘come down’ to ‘bring them up’. How did He do it? Their deliverance called for the death of the spotless Passover lamb. After applying its sacrificial blood to their doorposts, they cooked and ate the lamb while dressed in their travelling clothes, staff in hand, ready to leave captivity behind. Today, God wants us to prayerfully prepare for our journey to freedom; not by our own human efforts, but by faith in the shed blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away our sins. ‘Get rid of the old yeast, so that you may be a new unleavened batch…For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed’ (1 Corinthians 5:7 NIV).
