It is not easy to lean how to live as free people. It was a long, hard road for the children of Abraham to learn how to live as free individuals. After a desperate famine they found themselves enslaved to Egyptian masters. They were resigned to live as slaves in Egypt and did for 400 years until God raised up Moses to deliver them from slavery.

Although once out of physical slavery in Egypt, they still had to break out of the slavery mindset that had been engrained into their thinking. Oddly enough they repeatedly thought about Egypt and stated they wanted to go back.They were so entrenched in the mindset of slavery they constantly grumbled against Moses and God instead of advancing with God. Because of their stubbornness to change, God let a whole generation die in the wilderness.

You see…it was easier to be slaves. No decisions to make. No need to push ahead and do anything other than what they were told. For the children of Israel (and us today) it was easier to be full of fear than full of faith. Wow!  Slaves can passively submit to their masters and as long as they obey them they will be fed.

God had to pull them out of this kind of thinking and teach them to govern their lives and steward the earth. He confronted this slavery mindset with his plan for them. During the 40 years in the desert they had to look to God rather than human masters. After that first generation died off, the next generation represented a group that had never lived as slaves. They had no memory of anything to go back to so they had to advance with God and experience his prosperity. He molded a people that would not long for the past.

Harold Eberle likens it to the Spanish expedition to conquer the Aztec empire in the 1520s. After landing in Mexico their general, Hernando Cortes, had all the ships burned so his men had only one option: move ahead and fight. This is what God is saying to the Christian today. Move ahead and fight…in your finances and every area of your life. Time to burn some bridges with your past and move ahead to create some new things that will be a blessing to you and others.