Stay Motivated by Your Deliverance
One of the things readily seen as you read the Scriptures is how saturated it is with calls, commands, and exhortations to love, worship, serve, fear, and obey our great God and Deliverer. But have you noticed one of the primary and common messages the Lord keeps repeating over and over again to motivate a heartfelt and grateful response?
It revolves around what God lovingly, graciously, and powerfully did for His people, and He communicated it like this: “watch yourself, that you do not forget the Lord who brought you from the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery” (Deut. 6:12; Psalm 106:21). Over and over again, God used His miraculous Egyptian deliverance to incentivize His people in a multiplicity of ways:
Live obediently to His commands (Ex. 20:1–17).
Avoid unnecessary fear (Deut. 20:1).
Pity the other nations they would face and defeat (Deut. 7:16–18).
Be careful not to get satisfied by His blessing (Deut. 8:11–14).
Deal with false prophets (Deut. 13:5, 10).
Treat house servants fairly and properly (Deut. 15:12–15).
Practice the Passover (Deut. 16:1–12).
Do not pervert justice (Deut. 24:18).
Remember the alien, the orphan, the widow (Deut. 24:21–22), and the stranger (Ex. 22:21; Lev. 19:34).
Help the poor among God’s people without any financial expectation (Lev. 25:35–38).
Remember that disobedience was dishonorable (Judges 6:7–10).
Fear God only and not the false gods of pagan nations (2 Kings 17:7, 36; 2 Chron. 7:22).
Be holy (Lev. 11:45).
Listen to God’s voice (Jer. 11:4, 7).
Teach the children why they need to follow the Lord’s commands (Deut. 6:20–24).
Use memory devices like tassels on the corner of their garments to remember all the commands of the Lord “who brought you out from the land of Egypt to be your God; I am the LORD your God.” (Num. 15:37–41).
And this is only a partial list. When you come to the New Testament, God motivates us the same way by sharing all the amazing ways He used His Son’s death, burial, and resurrection to deliver us:
He gave every “helpless” sinner the same acceptable substitute (Rom. 5:6–8, “for us").
He gave every indebted sinner the same eternal “forgiveness” (Eph. 1:7).
He purchased every “slave of sin” with the same “redemption” (1 Pet. 1:18–19).
He provided for every member of Satan’s family the same “adoption” into God’s family (Gal. 4:5–6).
He transferred every citizen of Satan’s “domain of darkness” into the same “kingdom of His beloved Son” (Col. 1:13).
He gifted every wage-earning sinner the same “gift of eternal life” (Rom. 6:23).
He provided every doomed sinner the same “rescue from this present evil age” (Gal. 1:4).
He gave every “dead in their transgressions and sins” sinner the same spiritual “resurrection” (Eph. 2:1–7).
He gave every wrath-deserving sinner the same “propitiation” (Rom. 3:25; 1 Jn. 2:2).
He declared every guilty and unrighteous life fully justified by faith (2 Cor. 5:21).
He loved every hateful enemy and gave them the same “reconciliation” (2 Cor. 5:19; Rom. 5:10).
He delivered every sinner “from all their sins” with the same faith (1 Jn. 1:6–8).
All that to say “and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore…” (2 Cor.5:15–20).
What a Deliverer. What a Savior. What a Redeemer. For me, it is best summed up this way: “but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your toil is not in vain in the Lord.” (1 Cor. 15:58).
Pastor Jeff
“When we focus on self we see nothing. When we focus on others we see the specks in their eyes. When we focus on Christ we see the logs in our own eyes.”