Felix Ngunjiri Gichuri

What is Salvation?

For the individual, salvation means being rescued by God from the consequences of our wrongdoing. Salvation is a rebirth, you are washed clean of all your sins and given a new life. But your old life is still tugging on you. For some people they want to be free but can’t seem to shake old habits. The flesh is still wanting to call the shots. This is where deliverance comes in. When God delivers you, He removes those unhealthy desires and you become completely free.

God created humanity to have a close relationship with Him and He created a perfect world for us to live in. But our relationship with God was wrecked when man opted to defy God. That defiance was catastrophic, bringing sin and death into the world. The word “sin”, as it appears in the Bible, comes from the Greek word Hamartia or the Hebrew word Hata, which both mean “to miss the mark” or “flawed”. The mark that we are missing is the holy righteous perfection of God. When it comes to missing that mark, we’re not just veering off a little and barely missing the bull’s-eye. On our way to the range, we took a wrong turn and drove off a cliff! The Bible defines sin as an immoral act considered to be a transgression of divine law. “Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that Christ was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abides in him sins not: whosoever sins has not seen Him, neither known Him.” (1John 3:4-6 [KJV]) “He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1John 3:8-9 [KJV])

It is as if our sin leaves us permanently stained. God is pure and holy. He cannot tolerate sin, and He wants our relationship with Him to be restored and so, something has to be done about our sin. Sin is rebellion against God and its power seeks to capture the soul of the believer so as to kill him or her.

 Sin means death. Paul tells the Romans that “the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (Romans 6:23) meaning that sin means death and sin is inseparable from death. Sin is lawlessness or transgression of God’s will, by either omitting to do what God’s law requires or by doing what it forbids. The Bible defines sin as an immoral act considered to be a transgression of divine law. “Whosoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law. And you know that Christ was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. Whosoever abides in him sins not: whosoever sins has not seen him, neither known him.” (1John 3:4-6 [KJV]) The transgression can occur in thought, word or deed. “He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin; for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God.” (1John 3:8-9 [KJV])

It is as if our sin leaves us permanently stained. God is pure and holy. He cannot tolerate seeing sin wrecking the lives of the children He created and He designed a plan of how to save His children from the consequences of sin. He gave His Son the brief that He has to come down to earth and save His people. Jesus was told to come to earth as a Saviour, being named by God as Jesus.  The name Jesus means “Savior.” According to Easton’s Bible Dictionary, the name Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which was originally Hoshea (Numbers 13:8, Numbers 13:16). Moses changed this version into Jehoshua (Numbers 13:16, 1 Chronicles 7:27), or Joshua. Then, after Israel’s exile to Babylon, it assumed the form Jeshua, from which we get the Greek form Jesus. It was given to our Lord to denote the object of his mission, to save (Matthew 1:21). And it is a name given to our Lord because He saves His people from their sins.  “She will give birth to a son and you will name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” (Matt 1:21 [NET2])

 God wants our relationship with Him to be restored. That is why He gave us His Son to reconcile us to Himself through His sacrificial death on the cross. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation;” (2Cor 5:17-18 [ESV2011])

Salvation according to the Bible means to be rescued by God from the power of sin by removing you from that dangerous place of sin (Egypt, the world of sin) and taking you to a place of safety (The Promised Land). God saved Israelites from the oppressive Egyptian regime by rescuing them from the heavy hand of ungodly Pharaoh and from the pursuing Egyptian soldiers and led them to the Promised Land. “And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.” (Deut 26:6-9 [KJV])

God is Able to Save us From the Burden of Our Sins

God’s mercies are from everlasting to everlasting and He hears the cries of His people. He will not stand by and watch His children taken hostage by the power of sin and placed a very heavy burden of sin on his shoulders which cannot be removed by anything else except by God Himself. If we call upon Him to remove the burden of sin from our hearts, He moves very fast to save us for He is mighty to save. “The LORD your God is with you, He is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17 NIV)

God Saves Us by Performing Great and Terrible Signs and Wonders to Gain Glory for Himself

Salvation happens when God rescues people using great and terrible signs and wonders so that He gains glory for Himself over the enemy. God triumphed over Pharaoh and all his army at the Red Sea, so that the Egyptians would know that He is “the Lord.” “Then the LORD said unto Moses, Now shall you see what I will do to Pharaoh: for with a strong hand shall he let the children of Israel go, and with a strong hand shall he drive them out of his land. And God spoke unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the LORD: And I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, by the name of God Almighty, but by my name JEHOVAH was I not known to them. And I have also established my covenant with them, to give them the land of Canaan, the land of their pilgrimage, wherein they were strangers. And I have also heard the groaning of the children of Israel, whom the Egyptians keep in bondage; and I have remembered my covenant. Wherefore say unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments: And I will take you to me for a people, and I will be to you a God: and you shall know that I am the LORD your God, which brings you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians. And I will bring you in unto the land, concerning the which I did swear to give it to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob; and I will give it you for an heritage: I am the LORD.” (Exod 6:1-8 [KJV])

After God Saves you From your Enemy, He Will Take you to the Wilderness, the Land of Testing

After God parted the Red Sea for the Israelites to cross it on dry ground, He led them by His prophet Moses through the wilderness, the land of testing. “Remember that the LORD your God led you on the entire journey these 40 years in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commands.” (Deut 8:2 [HCSB]) After God saves you from your enemy Pharaoh (the devil) by taking you out of your Egypt (the enemy territory), the land of slavery/bondage, He will take you to the wilderness (the land of testing).

 Only those who passed the wilderness test were delivered into the Promised Land. After God saves you from the enemy, He will then pass you through the wilderness experience so that you shed off your prison mannerisms, prison clothes and prison beliefs and lastly to deliver you from the wilderness to the Promised Land.

God Saved Israelites From Bondage

Getting out of the land of Bondage (Egypt) requires God to save you with signs and wonders from the hand of Pharaoh. No one could have saved the Israelites but God. It required the mighty hand of God to save them.

After God led the Israelites across the Red Sea with great and terrible signs, He then passed them through the wilderness. “And the Egyptians pursued the Israelites, and went in after them to the midst of the sea, even all Pharaoh’s horses, his chariots, and his horsemen. And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians, And took off their chariot wheels, that they drove them heavily: so that the Egyptians said, Let us flee from the face of Israel; for the LORD fights for them against the Egyptians. And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out your hand over the sea, that the waters may come again upon the Egyptians, upon their chariots, and upon their horsemen. And Moses stretched forth his hand over the sea, and the sea returned to his strength when the morning appeared; and the Egyptians fled against it; and the LORD overthrew the Egyptians in the midst of the sea. And the waters returned, and covered the chariots, and the horsemen, and all the host of Pharaoh that came into the sea after them; there remained not so much as one of them. But the children of Israel walked upon dry land in the midst of the sea; and the waters were a wall unto them on their right hand, and on their left. Thus the LORD saved Israel that day out of the hand of the Egyptians; and Israel saw the Egyptians dead upon the sea shore. And Israel saw that great miracle which the LORD did upon the Egyptians: and the people feared the LORD, and believed the LORD, and his servant Moses.” (Exod 14:23-31 [KJV])

The hallmark of that miracle was how the Lord saved about two million people out of Egypt by helping them cross the Red Sea on dry ground, a momentous miracle which only God could do it because He is Mighty to save. God saved them by carrying them across the Red Sea with great signs and wonders entreating those who managed to enter the Promised Land to tell their children and their children’s children how God brought them out of the oppressive Egypt with great signs and wonders. God told the Israelites to remind their children how “the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and laid upon us hard bondage: And when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour, and our oppression: And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and with signs, and with wonders: And he has brought us into this place, and has given us this land, even a land that flows with milk and honey.” (Deut 26:6-9 [KJV])

Joshua later exhorted Israel to choose to serve the Lord “For He is the LORD our God, and He it is that brought us up and our fathers out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage, and which did those great signs in our sight, and preserved us in all the way wherein we went, and among all the people through whom we passed:” (Josh 24:17 [KJV])

Every believer at one point or another has a Red Sea moment, a situation from which there is no escape, and only an undeniable act of God can lead them safely out.

Throughout Scripture, we witness God’s amazing acts and numerous miracles. But with all the miracles of the Bible, the exodus from Egypt is the one that most defines God’s redemptive plan. In times of deep trial, God is repeatedly referred to as “the God who led you out of Egypt” as a remembrance of who He is, what He has done, and what He remains capable of doing.

In Exodus chapter 14, the Israelites were fleeing from Egypt when they found themselves on the verge of being brought back into slavery or even killed. With the sea in front of them and an army behind them, they felt hopeless and impossibly trapped. We likewise find ourselves in places where there is no solution, no answer, and no way out.

In the case of the Israelites, their freedom and their very lives were all but lost. An entire nation of people was given a taste of freedom only to find themselves at a dead end, the enemy closing in, and no escape. There was nothing to save them – apart from an act of God.

But the most overlooked aspect of the Red Sea moment is this: it was God who put them there.

God intentionally put them there, and God knew exactly how this was going to play out.

“Then the Lord said to Moses, “Tell the Israelites to turn back and encamp near PiHahiroth, between Migdol and the sea. They are to encamp by the sea, directly opposite Baal Zephon. Pharaoh will think, ‘The Israelites are wandering around the land in confusion, hemmed in by the desert.’ And I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and he will pursue them. But I will gain glory for myself through Pharaoh and all his army, and the Egyptians will know that I am the Lord.” So the Israelites did this.” (Exodus 14:1-4) God knew the result all along. He planned it.

However, staring down the barrel of a certain defeat from the mighty army of Pharaoh, the Israelites who had seen God perform astounding miracles to provide their freedom now questioned everything about Him and everything about their future:

“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn’t we say to you in Egypt, ‘Leave us alone; let us serve the Egyptians’? It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the desert!” (Exodus 14:10-12)

Learning to be Still

Maybe, just maybe, they thought, the past wasn’t so bad after all. Maybe slavery was better than uncertainty and defeat and whatever punishment was waiting for them back in Egypt. These people cried out daily for deliverance, yet when deliverance came they did not at all like what it looked like. There was finger-pointing, there was second guessing, but the fact is that God placed them in that exact spot in that exact moment so that He could perform a miracle that would define Him and His people forever.

 “And Moses said unto the people, Fear you not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which He will show to you today: for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you shall see them again no more forever. The LORD shall fight for you, and you shall hold your peace.” (Exod 14:13-14 [KJV])

It is not up to us to fight, it is up to us to follow. We have to trust that God not only knows our situation but knows the outcome. The ability to be still when everything in you is screaming to you to do something is the essence of faith, and it is only then that we see the greatest of miracles.

Your Defining Moment

Your Red Sea moment could well be your defining moment. Do you want your life to be a testimony of God’s greatness? Get ready for God to position you by the sea. Are you asking God to work in mighty ways in your life? Get ready for the sound of Pharaoh’s army approaching from behind. And then grasp on to God tightly in prayer.

God occasionally wants us to be in a position where we have no way out, no solution, no options, no choice but to trust in Him. As frightening as it is, most miracles only come when all options fade away and the only remaining option is God, hence the urgent life and death need for a miracle from God. David slaying Goliath, the walls of Jericho falling, Daniel in the lion’s den, Jesus rising from the dead, and the parting of the sea: “That day the LORD saved Israel from the hands of the Egyptians, and Israel saw the Egyptians lying dead on the shore. And when the Israelites saw the mighty hand of the LORD displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the LORD and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant.” (Exod 14:30-31)

When God has gotten us firmly trapped in a Red Sea moment, it requires much prayer, much faith, and much trust. Our deliverance is not going to come quickly or easily, but it will come in such a way that God is glorified. It will become a moment that sustains you through a lifetime of pain and a moment that can be celebrated in times of joy. It’s ok to be afraid, but not ok to let that fear overtake your faith. For faith is stronger than our fear, and God is stronger than any situation we face.
Passing Through The Wilderness Is Passing The Test

 The road to the promised land passes through the wilderness (which is the world) where you have been placed by God Himself to be tested. Moses told the Israelites that, “You must carefully follow every commandment I am giving you today, so that you may live and multiply, and enter and possess the land that the LORD swore to give your fathers. Remember that these forty years the LORD your God led you all the way in the wilderness, so that He might humble you and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep His commandments” (Deut 8:1-2). God tested the Israelites to know what was in their hearts. A test is a situation that God sends or allows in our life with the intention of revealing our loyalties, motivations, strengths, weaknesses, character, and commitment to Him and helping to purify, strengthen, and mature us. If successfully passed, a test also glorifies God. Tests pull you up while temptations pull you down. God allows us to be tested so as to bring out the best out of us. If you pass the test of love for God by loving Him with all of your heart, soul, mind and body as well as love for your neighbor, God will reward you and grade you well and tell you ‘Well done my faithful servant, keep up.’ ‘His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’ (Matt 25:23 [ESV2011])

It is Possible For God to Saves Us From Our Sins But Our Minds Can Remain Undelivered

The miracles of Jesus saving the sick from the danger of sicknesses and death are illustrations of salvation for that is the reason why He came. “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” (Acts 10:38 [KJV])

In Luke 5 we read that “when Jesus saw their faith” (Jesus, being God can see our faith which is unseen according to our eyes), the faith of the men who brought him to Jesus – he said to the man, “Your sins are forgiven you.” In that way too, Our Lord Jesus made His miracles a picture of salvation: forgiveness and deliverance granted to those who believe in Him. “And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone? But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering said unto them, What reason you in your hearts? Whether is easier, to say, Your sins be forgiven you; or to say, Rise up and walk? But that you may know that the Son of man has power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto you, Arise, and take up your couch, and go into your house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things today.” (Luke 5:21-26 [KJV]) “If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”  (I John 1:8-9)

God Will Not Allow You To Enter The Promised Land With Your Egyptianism

God will not allow you to enter the promised land with your Egyptian mentality, prison mannerisms, prison clothes and with your beliefs in the gods of Egypt. God will lead you into the wilderness to dump your Egyptianism there. All our Eqyptianism should be shed there in the wilderness and none of it shall enter into the promised land. If you refuse to shed it off, you will die with it there. God’s message to the Israelites was, and still is, that “you will die in your sins” if you do not shed them off. In this wilderness which is actually the world we live in, unless we believe in Him, obey Him and forsake our sins, we shall die in our sins in this wilderness.

Years later, Jesus Christ our Lord told His disciples and is saying to us that “That is why I told you that you would die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He,  you will die in your sins.”  (John 8:24) Jesus told the Jews that they will die in their sins if they do not believe that He came from above, that He is the Christ  which means Messiah or the Anointed One of God, the everlasting and unchangeable “I am”, the true God, God over all, blessed forever; the eternal Son of God, God manifest in the flesh, God made flesh, and become incarnate; the true Messiah, the only Saviour of sinners; the one and only Mediator between God and man; the Head of the church, prophet, priest, and King, and the Judge of quick and dead; as also the light of the world, the God who leads you in this wilderness of life.

Shedding Egyptianism in the wilderness can be likened to passing through barber from prison to remove prison hair. It’s odd to arrive home from prison with prison clothes, habits, language, prison lice, with memories of the water melons you used to eat in prison. All Egyptianism must be shed in the wilderness for you to qualify to enter the Promised Land. You can easily get out of Egypt but to get Egyptianism out of you mind will require God’s mercies and the power of God to be upon you to deliver you from the wilderness mentality. It took God 40 years to get Egyptianism out of Israelites and to bury it in the desert. Their Egyptianism was buried in the wilderness together with those who refused to shed it off.

Those Who Refused To Shed Off Their Egyptianism Perished In The Wilderness

God punished the adult population of Israel, those aged over twenty, who rebelled against Him even after they had seen how He delivered them from the house of bondage with signs and wonders. He took them round and round the wilderness to kill the adult population of Israel after they defied Him in the wilderness: murmured, complained, grumbled, disbelieved and rebelled against Moses and against God. The Israelites who came out of Egypt included a mixed multitude and they would remember the lavish Egyptian lifestyle they used to enjoy in Egypt without knowing that Egypt was a house of bondage. “​Now the mixed multitude who were among them craved more desirable foods, and so the Israelites wept again and said, “If only we had meat to eat! We remember the fish we used to eat freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.” (Num 11:4-5 [NET2])

Israelites had been incited to rebel against Moses (God’s appointed leader) by the ten spies who gave an evil report. God was so annoyed to hear that they were looking for another captain other than Moses to take them back to Egypt that He wanted to kill them (Num 13:25-33 [KJV])

“So all the congregation lifted up their voices and cried, and the people wept that night. And all the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron, and the whole congregation said to them, “If only we had died in the land of Egypt! Or if only we had died in this wilderness! Why has the Lord brought us to this land to fall by the sword, that our wives and children should become victims? Would it not be better for us to return to Egypt?” So they said to one another, “Let us select a leader and return to Egypt” (Num. 14:1-4).

Moses cried to God to pardon the rebellious Israel. “And the LORD spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying, How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, says the LORD, as you have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, Doubtless you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness. After the number of the days in which ye searched the land, even forty days, each day for a year, shall you bear your iniquities, even forty years, and you shall know my breach of promise. I the LORD have said, I will surely do it unto all this evil congregation, that are gathered together against me: in this wilderness they shall be consumed, and there they shall die” (Num 14:26-35 [KJV]).

Thousands of those who had seen signs and wonders of the Lord when being delivered from the hand of Pharaoh but murmured against the Lord died in the wilderness. Only their children who were born in the wilderness entered the Promised Land (Numbers 26:51-63).

As a result of that tragic experience, years later God gave the following exhortation to later generations of Israel: “Do not harden your hearts, as in the rebellion, as in the day of trial in the wilderness, when your fathers tested Me; they tried [tested] Me, though they saw My work. For forty years I was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people who go astray in their hearts, and they do not know My ways.” So I swore in My wrath, “They shall not enter My rest” (Ps. 95:8–11). Those Israelites who passed the test were qualified to proceed to the next stage of their life which is to be taken to the Promised Land.

Delivered From Wilderness And Ushered Into The Promised Land

For pilgrims to be taken out of the land of bondage by God to the Promised Land requires His mighty miracle where they can be delivered from death in the wilderness to the Promised Land through baptism in the River Jordan. It is like being saved from death to life.

Salvation is the saving of the soul from sin and its consequences. Deliverance on the other hand is the process of our sins being totally forgiven and we become new creatures and we qualify to be ushered into the Promised Land, the Kingdom His dear Son where you will be “Giving thanks unto the Father, which has made us worthy to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who has delivered us from the power of darkness, and has translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:” (Col 1:12-14 [KJV])

All those who came out of Egypt and saw the miracles God did to get the children of Israel out of Egypt died in the wilderness because they rebelled against God. Among those who saw the miracles that God did to rescue Israelites from hand of Pharaoh, it was only Joshua and Caleb who entered Promised Land. Only the little ones of those who rebelled against God were allowed to enter the Promised Land. God in His anger said to Moses, “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation, which murmur against me? I have heard the murmurings of the children of Israel, which they murmur against me. Say unto them, As truly as I live, says the LORD, as you have spoken in mine ears, so will I do to you: Your carcases shall fall in this wilderness; and all that were numbered of you, according to your whole number, from twenty years old and upward, which have murmured against me, Doubtless you shall not come into the land, concerning which I swore to make you dwell therein, save Caleb the son of Jephunneh, and Joshua the son of Nun. But your little ones, which you said should be a prey, them will I bring in, and they shall know the land which you have despised. But as for you, your carcases, they shall fall in this wilderness. And your children shall wander in the wilderness forty years, and bear your whoredoms, until your carcases be wasted in the wilderness.” (Num 14:27-33 [KJV])

The Promised Land Is For The Ones Delivered From Their Old Life To New Life in Christ

Just as crossing the Red Sea symbolized crossing from physical death to physical life, crossing the River Jordan symbolized crossing from spiritual death to spiritual life. It is like God took a new race of Israel to the Promised Land. It is like the old race died and the new race of Israelites were the only ones allowed to enter the Promised Land. Crossing the Red Sea symbolizes salvation from death but crossing River Jordan symbolizes deliverance from our physical old man syndrome where one receives Christ in his heart and becomes a new creature. “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2Cor 5:17 [KJV]) When you accept Jesus Christ and allow Him to enter into your heart, He comes in with a new way of doing things. All the old habits and old culture are cleansed away by His cleansing blood that washes away all sins. All your old mannerisms, beliefs, thoughts, attitudes, ideas, foods, drinks, that you used to cherish in your Egyptian life are surrendered to Jesus Christ who will wash them away by the Jordan River and you will cross your Jordan a new creature where old things will have passed away and all things will become new. And since Jesus Christ is no longer in the flesh, He will come into your life and fill you with Himself as He anoints you with His Holy Spirit. If you find yourself thinking more about things of the flesh every so often, “remembering the fish, which you did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick” (Num 11:5 [KJV]), you have a reason to panic for that tells you that you have not crossed your Jordan but you are still in the wilderness, the place of death.

But if you find yourself “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God” (Ephesians 5:19-21 [KJV]), do not panic thinking that you are talking to yourself like a mad person but get to realize that you are drunk, not with wine, but with the Holy Spirit and therefore Spirit filled. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwells in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, you shall die: but if you through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but you have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.” (Rom 8:1-17 [KJV])

Amen.