Walk Like an Egyptian

Your flesh has a driving purpose to be considered better, to make life better for itself. It also has a strong instinct for self-preservation when it is threatened. We trust ourselves to know what is good for us, and often follow blindly after whatever we desire. Do not be deceived, your flesh desires slavery, that is slavery to sin.

Remember how God took the Israelites out of Egypt? Was the Lord doing them good? Well, I think so, if what He said to Moses was any indication of their situation.

"I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt, and have given heed to their cry because of their taskmasters, for I am aware of their sufferings." "The cry of the sons of Israel have come to Me, furthermore, I have seen the oppression with which the Egyptians are oppressing them." Exodus 3:7 NASV

They had no life in Egypt other than that of slavery. God miraculously leads a whole nation of 2 million people out of the bondage of one of the most powerful countries of that time.

Freedom! That is until they got trapped between the Red Sea and Pharoah's army.

"Then they said to Moses, 'Is it because there were no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? Why have you dealt with us in this way, bringing us out of Egypt? Is this not the word that we spoke you in Egypt, saying, 'leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians'? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness."

They feared death and thought slavery would be better. Is that a reasonable assumption? Is that a good enough reason to lose trust in God's plan?

But then God reveals His incredible power to save them, once again, from Pharoah, by leading, may I remind you, a nation of 2 million people between two walls of water and then drowning Pharoah's army in that same body of water. In all of this, not a single Israelite has died because not a single battle has been fought.

Rejoice in salvation! That is until a month later:

"And the sons of Israel said to them, 'Would that we had died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full; for you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger."

Now they fear death by starvation. They would have preferred dying in slavery with full stomachs. They would rather be slaves with their pots of meat than follow God in the wilderness. Flesh is not a fan of suffering.

So the Lord sends them bread from heaven to eat.

At Rephidim, there was no water. So the people said,

"Why, now, have you brought us up from Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?"

They fear dying of thirst now, so the Lord gives them water from a rock.

At Mt. Sinai, Moses brings all the people to the foot of the mountain to meet God. How does God reveal Himself? They hear trumpets blast and thunder, see the mountain engulfed by fire, smoke and lightning, and feel the ground shake violently. This is their God who brought them out of Egypt and they are thoroughly frightened.

A year later they leave Mt Sinai, and after journeying three days, the grumbling starts again.

"We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic, but now our appetite is gone. There is nothing at all to look at except this manna."

Unbelievable isn't it? They longed to be back in Egypt so that they could eat all the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic that they wanted! God has promised them a land flowing with milk and honey, freedom to live in their own country, freedom to worship Him. They want something else, something they think is better,

something easier. So when the Israelites finally do reach that land, they are too afraid to enter because the people of the land are too strong to fight and they can't win.

"And all the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron; and the whole congregation said to them, Would that we had died in the land of Egypt!"

Oh no, not Egypt again?

"Or would that we had died in the wilderness!"

So now we think the wilderness is a better place to die.

"And why is the Lord bringing us into this land, to fall by the sword? Our wives and our little ones will become plunder; would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?"

Right, the Lord went through all that trouble to bring you out of the land of Egypt just so you can be killed and your wives and children be made slaves all over again.

Well, now they get their wish to die in the wilderness.

There's one more grumbling session when they run out of water.

"Why then have you brought the Lord's assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? And why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink."

Still looking back on Egypt after all this time.

(NASV Exodus 14:11-12; 16:3; 17:3; Numbers 11:5-6; 14:2-4; 20:4-5)

It only takes three days, three days, after the marvel of walking between walls of sea and seeing the Lord's awesome power in destroying the whole Egyptian army, for them to lust after Egypt. A month after leaving, they wish they were back, because in Egypt, they had plenty to eat. There is so much complaining, fear of dying, exaggeration, mis-representation of the Lord, twisting the truth of the past to seem better. Just like the Israelites, our flesh hates to suffer, but even worse than that, it will choose to please itself, even if it means being enslaved.

Moses, we read, had a different attitude.

"By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharoah's daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward." Hebrews 11:24-26

"We all must eventually figure out what the 'Egypt' is in our life and measure it against the unsurpassable riches of knowing and relating to Christ intimately." Joseph Stowell

What are your "treasures of Egypt" that you desire more than Christ? For me, it is not economical or material gain, but emotional gain through relationships. Meaningful relationships provide affirmation, companionship, a sense of worth, pleasure, bonding. Though God created these relationships for mutual joy and satisfaction, my desire for them was for my own fleshly satisfaction. As a result, I was repeatedly returning to the sin of jealousy, in essence, returning to slavery.

The flesh wants you to go back to Egypt, back to slavery in sin. The flesh wants you to walk like an Egyptian, but that isn't who you are in Christ.

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."Romans 8:1-4 NASV

Are you trusting that your flesh wants what is best for you?

Yuck! That's disgusting!

Do you ever look at yourself in the mirror and think "yuck! I look disgusting!"?

Ha! You have, haven't you? Your eyes just got wide cause you're wondering how I knew that.

Would you believe me if I said that the majority of women, regardless of their physical beauty, have experienced this shock? One of our most basic needs as women is to feel beautiful. Notice I used the word "feel", because reality doesn't matter, does it? It's all about how we feel.

So what comes after the tragic mirror sighting? A little panic sets in, insecurity rocks our world , and fear of rejection grips us. One or all of these drive us to great lengths to fix the situation. We put on more make-up, try on every piece of clothing in our closet, console ourselves with comfort food, seek out a man to make us feel beautiful.

Where am I going with this?

Well, my point is that when God's Word mirrors just how disgusting our flesh is, we have a "YUCK" reaction then too. We are driven to "fix" ourselves before anyone rejects us, or before more people reject us. Our pride is insulted at being seen this way and desires to restore us to any former glory we might have had.

So, honestly, when you finished reading the list of the flesh in the last post, did you see some thing or many things in your self that made you feel ugly? I bet you thought "I'm such a terrible person". Don't worry, it happens to all of us. You might be tempted to walk away from this exercise of identifying your flesh, to find some way to distract yourself, to find something to cheer yourself up. I was expert at doing that. Some of my "go tos" were to sit down and watch television, watch movies, read a romance book, eat, go shopping, try to make my ministry more flashy so that people would notice, dream up some flashy ministry so that people would notice, avoid doing things I wasn't good at, try to make friends, try to make someone, anyone, love me, satisfy my wants. We'll do anything to avoid feeling bad about ourselves and get angry at anything or anyone that gets in our way.

Why through all those years hadn't I seen the jealousy in my life as sin? I was doing what flesh does so well. I was making loads of excuses. I was making it someone else's fault. I was too busy making it seem not so bad. It is hard to be so deflated and disillusioned about yourself without trying to pump yourself up again. It's too uncomfortable to stay in that weak place.

What is the flesh anyway? How do I uncover it?

At one point, I started asking myself this simple question, "is this the flesh or the Spirit talking"?

Amazingly, the more I asked, the more I uncovered, til the Spirit had opened my eyes to a pretty little list on my flesh and its marks. These are some of the things I discovered hadn't been so obvious to me.

My flesh is behind the desire to feel good about myself.

My flesh has an insatiable appetite so that when I feed it, it only demands more.

My flesh always puts me first, asking "how does this affect me?".

When I feel threatened, feel "hurt", fear rejection, that's my flesh.

When I want others to see me and what I'm doing, that's my flesh.

When I refuse to suffer, that's my flesh.

Do you want to find your flesh where it is lurking about?

Watch for these signs: guilt, anger, rage, jealousy, fear, self-love, self-hate, self-pity, self-sufficiency, revenge, insecurity, conflict, envy, gluttony, lust, deception, hate, hurt, discouragement, comparing, complaining, rebellion, and rivalry just to name a few.

You are not going to find these things out in the open. This is the kind of stuff we keep hidden so well from those around us, we almost forget they are there.

But your flesh is there, like snakes in a basement, one or the other sneaks up and bites you "where the sun don't shine" as my daddy used to say. This is the essence of what trips us up, what makes us feel that we aren't growing spiritually, what makes us so tired of ourselves.

I know this is uncomfortable, maybe even depressing, but stay with me. Be honest with God, He's not frightened by your ugliness. Your flesh doesn't surprise Him.

Turn Up the Volume

How was it that I went so long without seeing my sin? Why was I so clueless to my flesh in action? Did I really think I could "live" the Christian life while tolerating so much fleshly behavior? Had I grown immune to the words of Scripture, "tone deaf" to their power to correct me? Obviously, if I could get through over 20 years without grieving over my sin, I had developed a thick skin towards the Word of God. If I had grown deaf, then I needed to turn up the volume. I decided to try and make the significance of the words in Galatians 5:19-23 become more loud, more difficult to ignore. I wanted them to be sharp enough to pierce through my spiritual complacency and stubbornness. The following list is what I consider to be the expanded version of the deeds of our flesh.

Self-satisfaction

Selfish sexual pleasure: reality, fantasy, porn, masturbation

Exerting power over others

Independence (from God)

ME first

Conflict

Quarreling

Pride

Jealousy

Envy - wanting what someone else has

Anger

Drunkenness

Self-indulging

Selfishness

Division

Hostility

Enjoy putting people against each other,

Having people join your “side” of things,

Resist giving up your way

Won’t accept humble position

Refuse to be wrong

Trying to "out-do" someone else

Then I took an inventory of the fruit of the Spirit and what is evidenced in my life when I don't have it.

Love

(selfishness, hate, disdain)

Joy

(lack of contentment, bitterness, unforgiveness, jealousy)

Peace

(war, conflict, threats, revenge, anxiety)

Patience

(temper, impatience, irritation, anger)

Kindness

(unkind, cruel, inflicting pain, hurtful, mean)

Goodness

(stingy, self-first)

Faithfulness

(unreliable, inconsistent, negligent, gives up easily)

Gentleness

(harsh, critical, rough, rude)

Self-control

(indulgent, impulsive, glutton, gossip, lazy, undisciplined)

Before you can "cross"walk, you must first see how truly weak you are, and where your flesh is most vulnerable. Understand that Satan is astute to your own flesh tendencies; he can pinpoint them with sharp accuracy. So you need to be clued in as well. You must know your flesh weaknesses better than your enemy does.

Ask the Spirit to open your eyes to see how your flesh tends to trip you up.

Turn up the volume!

The Trouble With Muck

Muck: moist farmyard dung otherwise known as manure

Other similar words: guck, mire, mud, ooze, slime, slop

Why does muck or mud create suction on our boots when we walk in it? We all know it does, but why?

I consulted cyberspace, (more commonly known as "google") and found that getting stuck in mud is quite the international phenomenon. It's hilarious to watch someone trying to get themselves out of the thick goo. Whether the adventurers are doing it for fun or are begging for help, the person behind the camera seems to always chuckle. I love that laughter can be recognized in any language.

According to an article that appeared in a 1909 issue of Popular Mechanics*, mud is so hard to break free from that it is the best method for securing your anchor.

"Mud holds an anchor best of all, as it allows the anchor to dig deep down and not only holds firm by hooking onto the mud, but by the suction as well. Some people cannot understand how mud bottom forms a good anchorage; but if these will take off their shoes and stockings some day and walk through shallow water and mud where they sink 6 inches or so into that mud, the principle will be satisfactorily explained."

So if you drop something in the mud, not only does it sink in, it's also sucked in. The longer I go in my sin, the deeper I sink into it. The longer I choose to walk in the flesh, the more I am sucked into it. Though I can't personally relate to being stuck in actual mud, because I hate mud, I hate the way it cakes all over your shoes, I have many years of experience mucking about in spiritual mire.

In my previous post, I mentioned my struggle with jealousy. Why was I always finding myself in the same muck? Hadn't I grown spiritually? I thought I was strong enough to resist temptation. What did it mean that I had failed again? As painful as my disappointment in myself was, I wouldn't step out of the muck. I just wanted to sit down and wallow in it. I was so tired of myself, I thought, surely, the Lord must be also.

Do you know what I'm talking about? Do you ever feel stuck in the muck of your sin, tired of being you, disappointed in yourself?

*by Henry Haven Windsor, (Vol 11, page 474)

The Opposition

I remember the day that I realized for the first time that my jealousy was a sin. God had given us a beautiful little girl through adoption, but that had been 2 years before and, more than anything, I wanted to be pregnant. So when close friends announced the news that they were expecting after trying for only one month, I was devastatingly "hurt".

Have you ever noticed that, when you hurt, it is always someone else's fault and not your own? Isn't that convenient! Back and forth I went with God about my pain, round and round in bitterness and anger, always asking "why me?". I hated being "hurt", but the funny thing is that I never seemed to want to let go of it either.

I have found that being "hurt" is just an easy detour sign from dealing with my own sin. When you follow the signs of your hurt, you avoid the signs the Spirit puts up to convict you of your sin. So there I was, faithfully following the wrong signs, even though they kept bringing me back to the same place. There I would be today if God, in His grace, had not gotten my attention with a sign of His own.

I was reading the Bible, clueless to its sword-like quality, when the Spirit showed me what was in my heart. There, on God's "billboard", in big letters and in all its ugliness, was JEALOUSY. I was horrified to realize that, for as long as I could remember, I had given in to jealousy. I had carried that despicable thing around with me everywhere, but had never given it a name, never really acknowledged that it was sin. At 30 years of age, I had been a Christian for 22 years, gone to church all my life, served many summers at camp, two years of Bible College, 12 years of ministry with children, and married 7 years, and yet I had never been broken like that, never cried over my sin, never confessed before God that I was wrong.

What an amazing relief I felt! It was like I had been cleaned up and made beautiful. It felt good to know that the Lord had done this and that I would be a better tool in His hands. Now that I had felt the dagger of conviction, I wasn't about to give in to that sin again.

Ha! Obviously I underestimated my flesh. It wasn't long before I was back struggling with the same thing. Okay, so I was back in the sin, but at least, now I was better able to catch it before it got out of hand, right? Not! Oh, how I wish that it had been true, but instead, I would let it go on long enough til I would inevitably find myself stuck, deep in muck.

Can you relate? I would love to hear what you think.

Walking By the Spirit

Have you ever heard of walking in the Spirit or walking by the Spirit?

Think back to a time when you walked by the Spirit? What did it look like in your life when you did? What was the difference? What were the circumstances? Seriously, take a moment to think about it.

When life is easy, we don't really see a need to depend on the Spirit, do we? It often takes drastic, "out of our control" circumstances to make us stop relying on ourselves and turn to the Lord. As a result, all we practically know of the Spirit's work in our lives is usually surrounded by crisis management, and we can't really picture it otherwise. Does God want us to walk by the Spirit only in times of crisis? Could He intend for us to walk by the Spirit all the time?

Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me."( Luke 9:23 NASV), and the apostle Paul wrote, "If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." (Galatians 5:25 ESV)

I noticed that the construction of these sentences looked similar, so I asked my husband if there is a name for them. Ok, so he gave me an answer, I just wasn't expecting it to make me laugh. What would you do if someone said "hortatory subjunctive" to you? All that means is that it's not exactly a command, but rather a strongly implied exhortation.

If you have ever had a desire to make your life count for Christ, you've probably suspected that these two "hortatory subjunctives" are crucial to accomplishing that. You've known the Spirit's exhortation to do these things, but wished you had a few more clues on how to make it practical.

I believe that walking by the Spirit and taking up your cross daily are linked together, that the success of one is dependent on the learning of the other. Therefore, I would say to you, don't attempt to carry your cross if you aren't walking by the Spirit, and you can't walk by the Spirit if you haven't got a cross on your back.

This book is intended to give a practical approach to taking up your cross and walking by the Spirit, that is, to join the two into what I'll call "cross-walking".

Don't Try to Walk Before You Can Crawl

Do you have a desire to grow spiritually but for some reason, you seem to be stuck?

Does your spiritual life feel stagnate?

Do you find yourself always revisiting the same failures and issues?

I have always dreaded that moment when it was my turn "to bat". The last time was when I joined in a game of kickball with my daughter's youth group and their parents. I stood at home base, anxiously watching the ball roll. Come on, Amy, just kick it and have fun. I went for it and yes!, I kicked that ball and ran with all my might. About half way to first base, I had the strangest sensation that I was falling forward. In reality, I was falling forward. My face was on a collision course with the ground and I couldn't do anything to stop it. I hadn't tripped, neither had anyone pushed me. My feet simply didn't move with the rest of my body. It was like my upper half was determined to keep racing, while my feet had a different goal. Talk about embarrassing!

The spiritual life can feel like that. You want to race well but something keeps holding you back. It's as if there are two forces working against each other, keeping you stuck, confused and discouraged. The truth is that just such a conflict exists inside every believer.

What do you make of that? Am I going too far to say EVERY believer? I bet you think there are some who don't struggle in their spiritual life, don't you? I know you have watched other believers, comparing your progress to theirs, like they were spiritual competitors. Your eyes fall on those who seem so far ahead, who seem to never struggle and you wonder what is wrong with you. Why can't you stay strong like that?

Paul tells us in his letter to the Galatians, that the desires of the flesh and the desires of the Spirit are in opposition to each other. They are constantly working against each other. Most of us don't like opposition even when it is good for us. My daughter tells me "Mom, you really don't want to eat that donut, you know it won't help you lose weight". Suddenly, I want to eat that donut just because I can.

In your spiritual life, however, opposition is a good thing. It could be evidence that the Spirit is gaining more control to which the flesh is going to resist, or it could be that the Spirit is resisting the self-satisfaction of your flesh. Either way, your struggle is healthy, it is better than giving in or giving up.