Day One
God Freed you from Slave Drivers
Where did we come up with the idea that God is good and we are bad and we have to impress Him? We don’t impress Him on the days we do good things; nor does He love us less on the days we do bad things. He just loves us. The Bible says that our righteousness is like filthy rags. In the ledger of Heaven there are only two sides; sin and filthy rags. That’s it. There is something in us, and in almost every major religion, where it’s assumed that if we’re good then God hears our prayers better. And if we’re good, then God likes us more. This thought has done more to alienate us from God than to bring us closer to Him. If we’re not careful, that belief system will cause us to become judgmental toward others.
It does us good to remember that before they did anything to deserve it, God moved the Hebrews out of slavery and into freedom. When they received the Ten Commandments, the relationship between the Hebrews and God was already established. The myth is that the commandments were about God imposing conditions for His love, or establishing rules that we had to follow in order for Him to love us. Rather, they are proof that He already loved us.
The laws that God laid down were teaching us to be human again, rather than being driven by slave drivers. It was not only the Hebrews who struggled with coming out from under the rule of slave drivers. Look carefully, and you will find yourself in the story of the Ten Commandments. If there is something driving our lives other than God, it’s a slave driver and every slave driver takes your dignity away. If you are a man who struggles with pornography addiction, deep down inside your heart every time you turn the computer on you feel worse about yourself. It takes your dignity away.
If your problem is rage, if you cannot control your anger with your child; every time you act in anger towards your child you feel worse about yourself. The job of a slave driver is to take your dignity away; to make you feel less than human; for you to forget who it is that God made you to be. If your slave driver is compulsive spending; you are buying stuff that you don’t need with money you don’t have to impress people you don’t like. That behavior is taking your dignity away. It becomes Egypt for you.
God is already in relationship with us, He gave us the righteousness of Christ. It has everything to do with living free of slave drivers today. He is creating a community of people who show the world who God looks like. God is all about teaching people to live with dignity and respect and how to do life together.
