In Hosea 4:6, God said that His people are being destroyed because they lack knowledge about Him; they refuse to know Him. Our Heavenly Father is informing us that what we don’t know about Him and His nature can severely hinder or destroy our lives. From very early on, we are taught to believe that we should make our own choices and decisions without God's help, and we are taught that we can become whatever we want. It doesn’t take long in life to realize that this line of thinking isn’t a winning strategy. Without the help of our Heavenly Father, some of us make choices and decisions that send us down the wrong path. We’re sometimes devastated by the choices and decision we make in life. The truth is that we can’t become whatever we want, but we can become the men or women that God has destined us to be if we surrender totally to His guidance and direction.
In Exodus 6:7-9(NLT), God told the people of Israel, “7 I will claim you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the LORD your God who has freed you from your oppression in Egypt. 8 I will bring you into the land I swore to give to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. I will give it to you as your very own possession. I am the LORD!’” 9 So Moses told the people of Israel what the LORD had said, but they refused to listen anymore. They had become too discouraged by the brutality of their slavery.” This is a lesson in what not to do.
The passage in Exodus 6:7-9 is taken from the Book of Exodus in the Old Testament. During Old Testament times, God’s people, the people of Israel, were servants of God. They were not sons and daughters of God the way that we are today, because during that period, Jesus Christ had not yet come to the earth. Jesus Christ said in John 14:8(NLT), “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me.” He is the way to our Heavenly Father, and before the ministry, sacrifice, and resurrection of Christ, a way to become a child of God did not exist.
God chose the people of Israel to be His very own people, but they didn’t have the kind of relationship with Him that He wanted. God had delivered them from the tyranny of Egyptian slavery, and He planned to give them their very own land, the Promised Land, “the land of milk and honey.” When Moses told the people what God had promised to do for them, they refused to believe what God said. They turned their backs on Him and ignored His Word. They didn’t trust God, and because of this, they continued to make terrible choices and decisions.
Because of the hardships of slavery in Egypt, the people of Israel refused to step outside the walls of fear and doubt. God wanted to guide them to deliverance, but they would not have faith in God’s goodness, and because of this, the older generation died off without ever setting foot on the Promised Land. The older ones who refused to trust God wandered round in the dessert for 40 years, and like them, many of us are wandering about as well. We have refused to trust God’s promises, and therefore, we live beneath our privilege.
God doesn’t want any individual to experience domestic violence and abuse. It is not His Will for our lives. Jesus Christ tells us in John 10:10(NLT), “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life.” The "thief" that Jesus Christ tells us about in this verse is satan, the devil, and the devil aims to destroy us by keeping us ignorant about God’s love for us. Messing with our minds by causing us to doubt God's Word and goodness is his number one tactic. We must resist this and not do as the people of Israel did when they hardened their hearts and refused to believe God’s promise.
Jesus Christ came to the earth to give us a rich and satisfying life. He made this available to us because this is what God wants for every person. In situations of domestic violence and abuse, our emotions as well as the suffering we have experienced can turn our thoughts to the confusion of doubt and fear. It is important for us to trust that God is a God of love, and all power is in His hands. He will guide us to deliverance and wants us to send an invitation for His divine and powerful intervention. In order to do this, we must resist the urge to sink to the depths of sadness and hopelessness. Instead, we must trust God’s promise of deliverance and know that He is faithful to help us change our lives.■
Scripture quotations marked (NLT) are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Wheaton, Illinois 60189. All rights reserved.
“The Promise of Deliverance”, written by Kim for https://rescuefromdomesticviolence.blogspot.com© 2022. All rights reserved. All praise and honor to God through Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
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