Living In Egypt

Where do you live?

Sorry. I shouldn't have sprung that question on you so early in the morning. It's a trick question you see.

"For in him we live and move and have our being." - Acts 17:28

Today's verse is not attributed to one of the Apostles or to Jesus. It is a quote from Epimenides, an ancient Cretan philosopher. Paul used the quote when he spoke to the Greeks in the Areopagus in Athens.

Paul used the words of someone they were familiar with to explain to them who he was and what he was doing there. And what was Paul doing in Athens? He was spreading the good news about Jesus, The Messiah. What Paul was saying was that, in Christ, he lived and moved and had his being."

I invite you to read that verse again. Read it slowly and let its words seep deep down into your heart.

Now.....with the words of Epimenides fresh in your mind, 'where do you live?'

We live....in Christ!

Why?

Because, "in Him, we live and move and have our being." At least we should.

When God's people lived as slaves in Egypt they prayed for a deliverer. God heard their prayer and sent them Moses. But when Moses led them out of Egypt most wanted to return there when times got tough.

"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 14:11-12

My friends, wherever we are physically living, this world is spiritually "living in Egypt," right now. Even though we are slaves to it, we like it here. We're used to it. We're comfortable.

Jesus is our deliverer. He came to deliver us out of Egypt (this world). And He will do it again one day. Soon. But until then, we will keep "making bricks," or whatever else it is we do. Only we will do so with an incredible hope. Hope in our deliverer,  Jesus. 

"Where do you live?"

"In Christ!"