Everyone knows that famous phrase, "Let my people go!" even if they've never read it in the Bible, but have only seen it in a Hollywood movie.
A not so obvious question, however, might be: What for?
Why did Moses ask Pharaoh to release all the Hebrew slaves?
We tend to focus on the first half of those verses and completely ignore the second half. We know what the people wanted to be freed from (slavery and oppression) but we forget about what they were to be freed for.
In fact, what Moses actually said every time he spoke to Pharaoh, or what God said through him, was, "Let my people go.... so that they can worship me." (Check it out in Ex 7: 16, Ex 8: 1 & 20, Ex 9: 1 & 13... and all the other times that Moses appears before Pharaoh.) There was a reason for the Exodus. It wasn't only so that the people could be free of slavery and mistreatment (even though that was an admirable outcome in itself.) It was also so that they could be free to worship their God and occupy the land that He had promised them.
We can make a similar mistake as Christians. Often we focus on what we have been saved from (sin and death and hell) but we forget to pay attention to what we have been saved for: a lifetime of intimate friendship with God as we serve and follow Him. We rightly give testimonies of what we have been freed from (alcohol, depression, destructive habits...) but we don't always remember to invest our energy in the things we've been set free to do: worship God, share Him with unbelievers, become more and more like Jesus...
Yes, it's good to express our gratitude to God for what He has freed us from; but let's also take time to understand and enter into what He has freed us for.
