Author: Kristen Kansiewicz, LMHC

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Exodus 13 before reading the devotional below.

Freedom is worth celebrating. A lot of places in the Bible contain instructions for celebrations, usually focused on remembering a time of significant victory. God wants the Israelites to pause in this moment and connect with their freedom. He knows that if they encounter too much hardship immediately they will give up and head right back into oppression. (We will see this in coming chapters.)

At the end of this chapter God sets up a pillar of fire and a pillar of cloud. These pillars are a continual reminder of God’s presence with them and of his nurturing character. He leaves a nightlight on for his children in a time when they are fearful and confused about what will happen next. He guides them with the cloud every day to take the guesswork out of their journey. It’s a long, hard road ahead and even God’s provisions won’t fully calm their hearts.

Here’s your freedom for today: you don’t have to know where you are going. God is leading you if you have turned your life and will over to him. He will tell you what you need to know at certain key moments, but a lot of the journey is also about trust. Do you need to know what is coming up ahead? Maybe. But maybe not. Can you trust that God will tell you what you need to know? Can you leave the rest of the questions there for him to handle?

 

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Exodus 12 before reading the devotional below.

It’s just like God to pause for symbolism. Pharaoh just got served his notice that all the firstborn sons in Egypt will die. In the midst of such a serious battle, God does not neglect to take a moment with his own people. They are, after all, his children. He wants to use this momentous time to teach them something about who he is and what he is doing. God does not kill for killing’s sake. He does not delight in any death. Pharaoh still has time to turn his heart around.

In reading this story of the first Passover, you may wonder why God uses so much animal killing to interact with his people. In large part, this is because the very first act that had to be done after Adam and Eve sinned was to kill an animal. In order to protect their dignity (now that they had a knowledge of evil), God had to sacrifice one of his precious animals. The very ones that Adam was tasked with naming had to die to protect humanity. Of course all of that could only provide an earthly kind of covering, so Jesus had to protect humanity by shedding his own blood as a perfect man. In this story, the Egyptian blood that was shed also provided salvation for God’s people as they were finally freed from slavery.

Here’s your freedom for today: God will always cover you. He will never shame you. When Satan shames you, God will cover you. He never intended for death in his Garden, yet he was willing to make a sacrifice of an animal to cover and clothe Adam and Eve. Central to the entire message of salvation is God’s willingness to sacrifice his own Son to create an eternal, spiritual covering that is immutable. Any moment that you feel shame, run to God instead of away from him. He knows how to make it all right again.

 

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Exodus 11 before reading the devotional below.

Moses has shifted from the reluctant messenger with a stutter to a bold and fierce leader for the people of God. These plagues have served a purpose besides teaching Pharaoh who’s boss. Walking through this process has changed Moses, too. He has seen God do what he said he would do, and he has been a vessel of God’s power multiple times now. He’s not messing around anymore. And even though Pharaoh has been unrelenting, the Egyptian people and even Pharaoh’s own officials have a great respect for Moses as they have endured these plagues. There is no doubt in their minds that Moses has a significant, God-given power.

The death of a firstborn son changes everything. Here we see the connection between Pharaoh and God. What is about to be forced on Pharaoh and his people is what God will later voluntarily take on in order to rescue the world. The oldest son of a king is a loss beyond ordinary losses. It is a disruption in world history. God is about to demonstrate his kingship over the whole world as he shows Pharaoh just how little power he actually has over his own life and future.

Here’s your freedom for today: we are changed in the process of walking by faith. If God had given Moses victory immediately with Pharaoh, how might this story have been different? Would Moses have been ready to lead the people through the desert? The trials are only going to get harder from here. Moses needed the plagues as much as Pharaoh did to see the truth. He was a leader, born for a purpose and equipped with the power of God. No one needed to be convinced of that more than Moses himself. What is God showing you about yourself through your trials right now?

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Exodus 10 before reading the devotional below.

God’s still wearing Pharaoh down, and in today’s chapter he tells Moses another motivation for carrying out his plans this way: a really good story for the grandchildren. This victory will be one that will not soon be forgotten (and in fact, here we are talking about it today!). Again, God offers a warning and gives Pharaoh a chance to opt out of the next plague (locusts) if he wants to change his mind. His officials plead with him, but Pharaoh won’t budge.

The end of this chapter is a fascinating piece of the plagues story that I have not paused to consider by itself before. The plague of darkness provides unique symbolism that we see repeated in other parts of the Bible as well. Imagine three days of darkness so dark that you could not even move. Sounds similar to two other Bible stories: Jonah in the darkness of the great fish’s belly and Jesus laid in a tomb and descending into the depths of darkness. Verse 23 reminds us exactly what it is like to be in the presence of God: “…there was light as usual where the people of Israel lived.”

Here’s your freedom for today: God makes it possible for us to see. We are surrounded by spiritual darkness, and yet where God’s people go we are still able to see. God shines a light on the lives of those who follow him, so that we can see spiritual realities hidden from those in darkness. When we are given spiritual eyes, we can see others in new ways. We can speak into situations with supernatural wisdom and insight. We can understand spiritual dynamics at work in our lives and the lives of others. The Bible also calls itself a “light for our path.” Reading God’s word illuminates our understanding so that we know how to live our most free lives.

Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Exodus 9 before reading the devotional below.

The plagues we have read about up to this point were things that were ultimately taken away. Frogs come, frogs go. In today’s chapter God raises the stakes and essentially destroys the entire economy. The Egyptians are watching their wealth vanish as their livestock and crops are killed. Amazingly, with all that they had seen up to this point, some did not listen to the warnings from God to bring in any remaining livestock before the hail storms came. Don’t say he didn’t warn you.

Remember that Egyptian gods had supposed power over things like the fertility of livestock and the fruitfulness of crops and the severity of the weather. God is demonstrating his power over any other gods by doing things that none of their gods had ever done. The magicians couldn’t even try out their powers anymore — they too were covered in painful boils all over their bodies.

Here’s your freedom for today: God always gives you a chance to change. Even in the midst of God bringing plagues to a land that had no regard for him, he warned them about what was coming. He gave them a chance to repent, and even gave them a chance to listen to him in order to save some of their remaining belongings. God wants you to turn to him. His actions are always meant as a way to bring you back to repentance. God does not delight when we learn things the hard way. Is there a warning he has given you? What can you turn from today before it is too late?