S132P7 – Patterns in Exodus: deliverance plus
Exo. 3:20-22
So I will stretch out My hand and strike Egypt with all My wonders which I will do in its midst; and after that he will let you go. And I will give this people favor in the sight of the Egyptians; and it shall be, when you go, that you shall not go empty-handed. But every woman shall ask of her neighbor, namely, of her who dwells near her house, articles of silver, articles of gold, and clothing; and you shall put them on your sons and on your daughters. So you shall plunder the Egyptians.
When I came to the Lord, I lived with a roommate who was an atheist, but we were no longer friends at that point. I had forgotten about this detail that he shared with me years earlier, so I had no idea the kind of spiritual warfare that would manifest in that apartment after my conversion. He did not know that I had changed my life, yet that environment became more unbearable daily. I prayed and prayed, but my home life just got worse and worse. Then, on one unexpected evening, I received a note saying that he would be moving out in two or three days. Not only did he leave, but he paid the remainder of his half of the lease for the rest of the term. In the end, I was left with that space all to myself for half a year without having to pay a dime more.
When we seek deliverance from God, we might ask him for just the bare minimum to get us out of our circumstance. Perhaps you live in an oppressive neighborhood, and you pray for God to get you out of there. You ask not for a mansion in a coveted neighborhood but simply for a quiet place to live. Maybe you are willing to downsize, to live more meagerly, as long as you can live somewhere peaceful. Yet, we see from this passage that the Lord delivered the Israelites with plunder. He sent them not only with the clothes on their backs but with the treasures of their enemies. God delivered them with more than the bare minimum. It is a pattern of setting his people free in a way that elevates them far beyond the place they used to occupy. He goes above and beyond.
The question is one of whether we have the faith to ask God for the full measure of his blessing of deliverance. In all things, we should seek the best God has to give. We do not know what that best is until we see it, but let us consider this pattern of deliverance. He frees his people so that the result of unshackled chains is a better existence on many fronts. When we ask God to free us, let us pursue a fuller and more blessed freedom than we can imagine. Let us seek God to not only free us from the enemy’s bonds but to grant us the power to plunder our enemy and walk out of there with treasure. Father, thank You for your awesome deliverance, and cause us to seek a freedom greater than we can imagine.