When reading the Old Testament, I seem to always run into verses that talk about the Exodus of the Isrealites, when God supernaturally freed His people from slavery in Egypt. There are so many places where God specifically tells the Israelites to remember the Exodus and to make sure they tell their children and chidren’s chidren about what He has done: remembering the Exodus was foundational to the Israelites’ faith. God even tells Moses before the Exodus that the main reason for all of His actions is so that the Israelites will always remember that they are His people and He is their God (Exodus 6:7). A good exercise in literally seeing this is to do a search of the exact phrase “out of Egypt.” It’s amazing just how many times it is mentioned both by God and His people.

In translating this for us today, I believe that every single believer has had an “Exodus” moment, a time when God supernaturally freed them from being enslaved to sin. Objectively speaking, coming to faith means accepting the free gift of salvation that God provided through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus, who took the full measure of God’s wrath onto Himself, on the cross for sin: this event is foundational to the Christian faith. Just as the Israelites were told to remember the Exodus, so we today are to remember our own “Exodus” because it is a reminder to us that through Jesus, God becomes our Father and we become His children. If that’s not enough, God literally works a miracle within every person who comes to faith in Jesus: they become a new creation (2 Corinthians 5:17). In that moment, a person’s spirit becomes eternally fused to Holy Spirit where a believer is no longer controlled by their sinful nature, but is now controlled by Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9).

Subjectively speaking, this new reality will uniquely impact each believer because sin has a way of manifesting itself in all kinds of differing ways in a person’s life. For me this meant an “Exodus” from drug addiction. For you it may mean an “Exodus” from something else (lying, workaholism, pornography, bitterness, anger, emotional trauma, physical illness, greed, self-abuse, an eating disorder, a critical spirit, etc). It’s very important that we not only remember the objective “Exodus” of our salvation but also the subjective “Exodus” that is the specific freedom that God has given us through our faith in Jesus. There is not a day that goes by that I am not grateful to God for my supernatural “Exodus” from drug addiction. Whenever I think about it, my faith is strengthened. That’s why God made such a big deal out of having the Israelites continually reminding themselves and each other of the Exodus because it generated faith by reminding them that they will always be God’s chosen people and that He will always be their God, so too us.

When’s the last time you reminded yourself or told someone about the supernatural “Exodus” of your salvation?