EXODUS, A PLANNED SALVATION

Exodus!  Do you know about the Exodus that occurred so many centuries ago? God's people were slaves in Egypt, remember?  Moses came and moved them out of there.  After, perhaps, hundreds of years, they made it to the Promised Land. The Jewish people were saved from slavery and hatred, and brought home, a home they had never known before.  Saved!  God brought them salvation.


I'm guessing, the word "salvation" is perhaps the most important word in the vocabulary of a Christian, and so the idea of the Exodus being a means of salvation for the Egypt-born Israelites was very new to me. But, God was definitely working salvation for His people.


Imagine, moving thousands of stubborn, uncertain people through a wilderness, desert experience over many years to a new home where they would  no longer be slaves in a foreign country. Not foreign  because they did not know it well, but foreign because they did not belong there.


That is exactly like today's people, those of us who belong in another world where we would not know sin, where we would be loved, and would worship the God who loves us and created us.  We are stuck  in this world, familiar though it is, where we know sin.  We know our own sin well, and we know the sins of others, being affected by them every day.  We are corrupted by sin.  And we fight against sin. Sin is everywhere.  We can't remove our own, let alone the sins of others.


We need an exodus.   When will it come? Our Lord waits to give it to us. But, like the people of that long-ago exodus, we will grumble.  We will probably hate what we have to go through, because it won't be easy to see our attitudes and behaviors spread out in front of us. Sins!  Let's call them by their real names--sins! My Selfishness.  My Pride. And many, many more.


Our Lord waits to save us--our salvation--by our acceptance of His offer made so long ago when He hung on the wooden cross, "Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do!" Acceptance.  Our acceptance of Him and what He has done for us is the key.  Our acceptance of His forgiveness is the beginning of salvation for our souls as we wait for the new world where we belong. Shall we begin with acceptance?


May the Lord have His way with each of us until we are His, totally.  Let the exodus of our lives begin by following Him until we truly know and can see His complete salvation in each of us.


Here I come!


Yours, Jo