Thursday, April 22, 2010

VE ON!

"Why are you crying out to Me? Tell the Israelites to move on."
Exodus 14:15

Moses had brought the whole nation of Israel, approximately 600,000, to a dead end in the desert. The only thing between Israel and Pharaoh's pursuing army was the Red Sea. This was after ten plagues God had inflicted on Pharaoh to motivate him to free the Israelites. Finally, Pharaoh had freed Moses and the people, and they left Egypt. They thought they were home free. "Freedom at last," they said.

But God did a strange thing. He directed Moses to take a route that led to the Red Sea, instead of the northern route around the Red Sea. God explained that He didn't want them fighting the enemies they would have encountered on this route. But still, there was the issue of the Red Sea.

They finally arrived at the Red Sea, and the people were wondering where they would go from there. News hit the camp: Pharaoh had changed his mind. He was coming after them with his army. Panic set in.

God sometimes brings each of us to a "Red Sea" in our life. It may be a work problem that can't be solved. It may be a marriage that seems to be failing. It may be a debilitating disease. Whatever your Red Sea, God tells us one thing: "Keep moving." The Red Sea was before them, yet God was angered at Moses and told him to "Keep moving."

"But Lord, the Red Sea is before me."

"Keep moving."

When we live by sight, we act on what we see. God sets this stage in dramatic fashion. God is into the dramatic. There is no way out without God here. That is just the way He wants it. No one will get glory except God.

A friend once admonished me when I was in the midst of an extremely difficult time in my life, "You must not withdraw from being proactive in your faith just because of this trial that you are in. God's hand is on your life. There are too many who are depending on you to fulfill the purposes God has in your life. Keep moving! Keep investing yourself in others."

I didn't feel like it. I was in too much pain. But I did it anyway.

God met me at the point of my greatest need once I decided simply to be obedient. Getting past myself by investing myself in others helped heal the pain.

There is great healing when we look past our own problems and seek to invest ourselves in others for the sake of Christ. This is when our own Red Seas become parted. We begin to walk to freedom.

But we will never experience the miracle of the Red Sea in our lives if we don't first "Keep moving.

Don't Let Your Past Hold You Back

Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on. Philippians 3:13-14

One of Satan's strongest weapons against Christians is to bring up our past failures and embarrassments to discourage us and tell us that we can't go on for Christ. The devil wants to pile up the rubbish and ruins from our past to block our progress.

Nehemiah and his fellow Jews who went back to Jerusalem to rebuild the city's walls encountered mounds of rubble and other debris from the city's destruction. The fourth chapter of Nehemiah describes the physical rubbish the workers faced, but the principle remains the same in the spiritual world.

The debris they were working around was a reminder of past failures and defeats for Jerusalem.

But Nehemiah was there to claim victory, not moan over the past. And many times we must do as Nehemiah did--stand in the area of previous defeat and claim victory for Christ!

If you get caught up in all of the junk of the past, you'll get weighed down and not move forward.

Don't let the evil one remind you of your failures...
and fail to focus on the blessings of God in your life.

Have you lost confidence today because of failures that still haunt you?

If so, I encourage you to follow Paul's advice and forget about them... and strain forward to what lies ahead!

Don't let the piles of rubble from your past keep you from pressing on for Christ.