Losing Site of Egypt
28 So Pharaoh said, “I will let you go, that you may sacrifice to the Lord your God in the wilderness; only you shall not go very far away. Intercede for me.” Exodus 8:28 NKJV
I was thinking about the Israelites in the desert after leaving Egypt. It was a hard time of learning to trust the Lord and believe that He would always meet their needs on time and with power that was awe inspiring. It took them a good 40 years to learn this, but that same situation sits before us all the time as well. What about us? In our walk with Him, do we trust Him? Are we all in with our lives to trust and serve Him?
Before the Israelites were released by Pharaoh, Egypt and Pharaoh had to endure the plagues to learn of the power of the Lord, and their need to heed and obey. Early in the process Pharaoh yielded partially to the Lord. After the plague of lice, Moses told Pharaoh that flies would be next. Pharaoh relented and let Israel leave but only to offer sacrifices and they could not go to far from Egypt.
Our carnal nature is much like Pharaoh; we don’t want to yield all the way to the things of the Lord. We want to live in a compromise with Him and His will. Pharaoh did not want more plagues, but he did not want to lose his slaves either. He wanted his will and thought he could compromise with God and still get what he wanted.
How often are we living for Christ and yet still holding onto to our own selfishness. We want what we want, while at the same time desiring to please and satisfy the Lord. The result is that most believers give their hearts to the Lord but not the entirety of their lives. They still keep one foot in the world to satisfy their own while convincing themselves they can gain a compromise with the Lord. We think to ourselves, “we will go so far for you Lord, but we will keep the world in sight, so I can return to it. It does meet some of my needs”.
If our confidence is in the world we will never be able to go completely over to God and walk after Him. We go out in the wilderness only so far, always keeping the world within sight. We never venture too far away. This is not being all in for Jesus. This is the problem with most of the Body of Christ in our culture. We have never lost sight of Egypt.
2 Corinthians 6:17 says that we are to come out from them and be separate. We are not good at separating ourselves totally from the world; we always leave that life line to it. Let our vision be only ahead in Jesus, never turn back and look to Egypt until it is no longer in site.
J Todd Hostetler