When you think about the Israelites who were enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, one would think that their release from slavery under Moses’ leadership would have changed their patterns of belief and behavior. Well, it didn’t. In fact, after their deliverance by the hand of God they were more enslaved in their minds and hearts than they ever were in Egypt. They cried out to Moses, “Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’?
I think there are a lot of Christians who have this same mentality today. We have believed the same kind of lies and half-truths that set God’s people back. We live as though we’re still enslaved to sin, even though the slavery has been eradicated by Christ work on the cross. We continue to see ourselves in our own nature even though we have been given a new identity. And instead of believing what the Bible says about us, we too quickly turn to what others say about us in their half-baked truths.
We can find this in every sphere of human life. A boy whose father told him he would never amount to anything. A student who lives up to his bad reputation in the classroom because of what teachers have said about him. A woman who was abused as a little girl, and now believes the lie that no man can be trusted. A race of people who were kept under oppression for hundreds of years and who still turn to the voices of lies and oppression to find their freedom. Some of our worst enemies are those who are closest to us.
Jesus died to set us free from the lies and half-truths that can only serve to hold us back. His words offer life and true freedom because that is who He is! Jesus said, “And you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.” John said, “And this is the testimony, that God gave us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. Whoever has the Son has life; whoever does not have the Son of God does not have life.”
“Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust, who does not turn to the proud, to those who go astray after a lie!"
Mephibosheth was the son of David’s friend, Jonathan, who of course was the son of King Saul. As a small child Jonathan’s son, Mephibosheth, became the victim of both tragedy and mishap – all on the same day. Word came to his house that his father, Jonathan was killed in a battle against the Philistines and this sent the entire household into a panic. As the midwife picked Mephibosheth up to quickly move him to safety, she dropped him – leaving him crippled for the remainder of his life.
Later, David became King of Israel and he called for any surviving members of his friend, Jonathan’s family to be brought before him. Out of his friendship with Jonathan, David wanted to show kindness to them. Meanwhile, Mephibosheth which means, “out of the mouth of shame”, had been living a life of obscurity. He had grown up believing the lies of those closest to him. They told him that King David would see him as a threat to the throne and would kill him if he ever found him. They told him that his being a crippled was a mark of shame and that he was best to live a poor existence in obscurity. Up to this point in his life, these were the only voices that surrounded him.
So when Mephibosheth was brought before King David, he was expecting the worst. You can hear it in his words to the king, “What is your servant, that you should show regard for a dead dog such as I?”
And for the first time in his life he heard the truth about who he really was, and how God saw his future… “Then the king called Ziba, Saul’s servant, and said to him, “All that belonged to Saul and to all his house I have given to your master’s grandson (Mephibosheth). And you and your sons and your servants shall till the land for him and shall bring in the produce, that your master’s grandson may have bread to eat. But Mephibosheth your master’s grandson shall always eat at my table.”
Are you living like a child of the King of Kings, or have you been bamboozled by the lies of those around you?
“No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends.”
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