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Special Deliverer


And so all Israel will be saved, as it is written: “The deliverer will come from Zion; he will turn godlessness away from Jacob.  (Romans 11:26) 

          How often do you long for a "knight in shining armor" to come and rescue you from whatever it is you wish to escape? Some people might call this immature romanticism, but I suspect there is part of each one of us that recognizes a deep-seated need for deliverance. That's why people react so strongly in politics. Candidates promise to deliver us from _________. If the wrong person is elected, those hopes and dreams are dashed. If the right person is elected, chances are those hopes and dreams are dashed because the delivery delivered doesn't turn out to be the delivery we thought we were getting. Our "happily ever after" dissolves into disillusionment. 
      In my own case, I can tell you that in my last job, there were many days when I felt incapable of doing more than standing with my arms folded and saying "Please, God. Please, God." His delivery of me from that job has done wonders, but it has also put me in a much smaller space. Much of the torture is gone, but so is the money. Minimal as my income was, it was many times more than I am getting now. I am still praying for deliverance in the form of a best-selling book. (Uh-huh.) 
         Today's verse is part of a passage dealing with God's apparent rejection of Israel. They had the same problem. They wanted God to deliver them from godlessness by freeing them from their oppressors. God's idea was to deliver them from their own godlessness, often through their oppression. That is the reality of much of our deliverance. It isn't deliverance from, it's deliverance through. "Beam me up, Scotty," is often our cry, but God is looking for and making heroes, not victims and not escape artists.

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