Rollercoaster

Israel\’s time on this earth was just one big rollercoaster. The account of their relationship with God has been categorized by extreme ups and downs. God was so good to them and proved himself many times but yet they still shit on Him. Then they would come crawling back and everything would be okay. Then all of a sudden they would turn their back on Him once again. There life starts when God uses Moses to deliver them out from under the hand of Pharoh. I really believe that a believers life can match up perfectly with the relationship that Israel has with God. I see the deliverance in Egypt as the salvation experience.

Exodus 12:42
It is a night to be observed for the LORD for having brought them out from the land of Egypt; this night is for the LORD, to be observed by all the sons of Israel throughout their generations.

God brought them out of Eygpt where they were slaves. They were slaves to Pharoh and did whatever he wanted them to do. Now for believers in Christ before we accept him are also slaves. We are slaves to sin. We are doing the work of the devil and accoplishing his will. We are blind to the fact that God has a huge world out there that we can explore and discover. He has many things that he wants to show us. Just as Israel was blind to the fact that there was a land, a promise land, waiting for them on the outside. Beyond the gates of their slavery. Paul says it best;

Romans 6:1-10
   ¹What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin so that grace may increase?
   ²May it never be! How shall we who died to sin still live in it?
   ³Or do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?
   ⁴Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, so that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.
   ⁵For if we have become united with Him in the likeness of His death, certainly we shall also be in the likeness of His resurrection,
   ⁶knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin;
   ⁷for he who has died is freed from sin.
   ⁸Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him,
   ⁹knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, is never to die again; death no longer is master over Him.
   ¹⁰For the death that He died, He died to sin once for all; but the life that He lives, He lives to God.

The crazy part is that this is a passage that I had to memorize in high school. This shows our status as followers of Christ. We are no longer slaves to sin. We are no longer under that rule. We have died to sin and be raise with Him. Israel died to the life of the slave. They were no longer under the rule of Pharoh. Just as death is no longer a master over us, Pharoh is no longer master over Israel. Just as us who have died have become freed. Those who followed Moses also became freed. In so many ways does this verse written many years after apply to a nation many years before. I just had an idea. I am going to write what I think Irsael could have/should have been thinking if they wrote a similar passage.

1.What shall we say then? Shall we stay in Eygpt so that our work load may increase?
2.By no means! How shall we who have an opportunity to leave continue to stay and do this incredibly stupid work? 3.Do you not know that God has sent Moses to take us out of Eygpt? 4.Therefore if you believe in God and trust that he has sent us Moses to deliver us from Pharoh, we can now have a new life, one that is free from slavery. 6. Accepting this means we do not have to ever go back to Egypt, EVER! 7. For he who follows Moses out of Eygpt is freed. 8.We will now live with God and he will take us to the promise land. (which doesnt happen yet because they are idiots) 9. Pharoh is no longer our boss!

Well that was kinda cheesy maybe, I can\’t tell and hopefully I didnt break any christian rule or offend God but you get the picture.

It cool yet not so cool that my life relates so well to what Israel was like thousands of years ago. In some sense I feel as though it is universal. It just brings out more and more the consistency of the world that God created and makes me realize that He is ridiculous in so many ways. I sometimes try and think of how long it would take me to create something so complexly created and not only that but extremely consistent over such a long period of time.

Anyways, back to the rollercoaster. That not the end of Israel. After God uses ten incredibly crafted plagues that could only be produced by an all powerful God, he then miraculously rescues them from the hand of Pharoh. It says;

Exodus 32:1
¹Now when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, the people assembled about Aaron and said to him, \”Come, make us a god who will go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.\” 

So what do they do? They mess up. Wow, so much like my life. Its interesting to watch people when they think that no one is looking. I was in a training the other night and we got to the test part and the teacher handed the test out then stepped out of the room. It was like nothing that I had seen before. Everyone in the class began to cheat. They were pulling out notes, talking to each other, glancing at each others papers. It was ridiculous. I work with these idiots. These are grown adults. Then after I read these passages and thought about how I related to Israel, my judgements began to hold no weight. I realized just because I didnt cheat on that particular test doesnt make me a better person or give me the right to cast ridicule on them. Truth be told, few have access to the dark corners of my mind and when I am alone and the principle is not looking over my shoulder I break the rules. Just like Israel, when I am left alone to fend for myself, time and time again I return to ignorance and selfishness. Trying to forget that I can never truly hide. Yet at the end of the day Moses/my silas comes marching down the hill with a look on his face that says – \”what the F are you doing?\”

God help me to be better than Israel. Help me to seek you when no one is looking. Help me to write this blog because I want to learn more about you, not because its cool or that I have brothers that read it. I know its not about actions but its not without actions. Help me to gain integrity back. Get me off this stupid rollercoaster and on a never ending escalator and give me the strength to handle being left alone sometimes.