[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":83},["ShallowReactive",2],{"\u002Farticles\u002Ffree-delivery":3,"\u002Farticles\u002Ffree-delivery-surround":72},{"id":4,"title":5,"author":6,"bibleBooks":8,"body":11,"columnName":55,"date":56,"description":17,"extension":57,"image":58,"meta":59,"minRead":60,"navigation":61,"path":62,"postType":63,"publication":64,"publicationUrl":58,"seo":65,"stem":66,"topics":67,"__hash__":71},"blog\u002Farticles\u002Ffree-delivery.md","Free Delivery",{"name":7},"Dave Faust",[9,10],"Exodus","2 Corinthians",{"type":12,"value":13,"toc":51},"minimark",[14,18,21,24,27,30,33,36,39,42,45,48],[15,16,17],"p",{},"For most of us, \"delivery\" reminds us of pizza and the postal service. Buy a new refrigerator, and a delivery truck will bring it to your home. Your delivery matters if you're a pitcher throwing a baseball or a minister preaching a sermon. We were born in a delivery room, and all of us will need another kind of deliverance before our lives are over.",[15,19,20],{},"For the ancient Hebrews, delivery seemed like an impossible dream. Year after year they remained stuck in the muck of slavery, and every brick they made for Pharaoh only made the wall of bondage thicker and higher. How could they ever be free? \"The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help . . . went up to God. God heard their groaning . . . and was concerned about them\" (Exodus 2:23-25).",[15,22,23],{},"That's how deliverance works. A crisis leads to a cry. God's concern leads to a call. And a deliverer like Moses rises up to lead his people out of bondage.",[15,25,26],{},"America could use a healthy dose of deliverance right now.",[15,28,29],{},"We live in the land of the free, but we've become a culture of the addicted—hooked on drugs, alcohol, pornography, and cheap thrills. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,31,32],{},"We twist the privilege of free speech into a license for vulgarity, taking God's name in vain and viewing sexual immorality as a routine form of entertainment. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,34,35],{},"Self-indulgent and undisciplined, we build our slave-pens not with mud bricks but with plastic credit cards. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,37,38],{},"Pharaoh ordered baby boys thrown into the Nile River as a political expedient, and we call it a tragic abuse of power. Today, innocent babies are destroyed by abortion and we call it a woman's right to choose. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,40,41],{},"By the time Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the Ten Commandments the people already were breaking them, reveling wildly around a golden calf. Moses angrily broke the tablets, God graciously provided a second edition, and for more than 3,000 years those laws formed a solid foundation for ethical behavior. Today we can't even agree whether the Ten Commandments are suitable for public display. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,43,44],{},"In Exodus, God led his people by day and by night, feeding them daily bread, showing them how to treat others, coaching them in the skills of citizenship and worship. The Law of Moses and its animal sacrifices, priesthood, and tabernacle all point toward Jesus the Messiah and the kingdom he would establish. Yet even though we live on this blessed side of the cross, too often we are like the Israelites—drifting into rebellion and ingratitude, taking our blessings for granted and neglecting the God who leads us. Lord, deliver us from evil.",[15,46,47],{},"We face a cultural crisis today, which at its core is a crisis of individual conscience. Without Christ, we are slaves to sin; but with Christ, there's deliverance. The apostle Paul rejoiced that God \"has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us\" (2 Corinthians 1:10).",[15,49,50],{},"Our Deliverer has already come. If we're willing to follow, he will lead us out of bondage into the promised land.",{"title":52,"searchDepth":53,"depth":53,"links":54},"",2,[],"First Look","2007-07-15","md",null,{},3,true,"\u002Farticles\u002Ffree-delivery","column","The Lookout",{"title":5,"description":17},"articles\u002Ffree-delivery",[68,69,70],"Biblical Theology","Spiritual Formation","Discipleship","US96Z6PQrAw6gRnbWFnGz1rlSB7katcxPK4Abwm263o",[73,78],{"title":74,"path":75,"stem":76,"description":77,"children":-1},"The Fourth ‘R’","\u002Farticles\u002Ffourth-r","articles\u002Ffourth-r","“The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained",{"title":79,"path":80,"stem":81,"description":82,"children":-1},"Freeze the Sleaze","\u002Farticles\u002Ffreeze-the-sleaze","articles\u002Ffreeze-the-sleaze","Half a century ago, C. S. Lewis wrote in *Mere Christianity*, \"There are people who want to keep our sex instinct inflamed in order to make money out of us.\"",1790466150317]