By Andrew Stoddard
Have you ever hesitated to follow God because you’re afraid of what you may have to give up along the way? Maybe you’ve felt this way during a season of wandering, or perhaps it has been a barrier to making a first-time connection with Him altogether.
Whether we’re concerned about opportunities or experiences, possessions or possibilities—many of us worry that we’ll lose more than we’ll gain by following God wholeheartedly.
What’s completely backward about this way of thinking is that God’s invitation to a relationship always comes with “above and beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20). Don’t believe me? Look at the Israelites.
In Exodus 6, God made this declaration to the Israelites: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God” (Exodus 6:7). He made this promise to them when they had literally nothing to offer Him, and certainly nothing to lose. Enslaved by the Egyptians for 400 years, destitute and dying, the Israelites were called by God in the midst of hardship and suffering.
God heard their cries and resolved to set things right. What’s fascinating is that before the miraculous signs and wonders were shown to Pharaoh, before God commanded that the Israelites be “let go” and freed, He made a promise to them about their identity and relationship with Him: “I will take you as my people, and I will be your God.”
We think so much about what we may lose in following God, but look how much the Israelites gained when God claimed them as His people. He initiated the relationship, redeemed their hardships, and ultimately led them into the promised land.
There is so much cause for rejoicing. Once we turn to Jesus, slavery to sin and darkness no longer define us. You may not be perfectly where you want to be, and you may not be fully who you want to be. But thank God you are no longer where you once were, or who you once were.
There is progress to be made, and there are mile markers to be passed. Yet slavery, a life yoked to sin, is in the rearview. God has called you one of His own and called you out of the land of the Egyptians. And now, as God’s people, we get to participate in Jesus’s victory over sin, the wilderness, and death—once and for all.
We place our lives under God because He first called us to be His people. May we decide once and for all to place the fullness of our being under His loving leadership. He’s called us out of slavery and will faithfully see us through.
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