My reading for today:
Ex 3:1-22 I love this.
Just a little context....
1) A new King is ruling Egypt and has put harsh labor and treatment on the Israelites in fear of their increasing growth in number and strength. Israel cries out to God. Ex 1 & 2
2) God calls Moses to do something HUGE... He will send Moses back to his homeland to bring His people out of Egypt: OUT of slavery and INTO a plentiful and spacious land “flowing with milk and honey.”
2) God calls Moses to do something HUGE... He will send Moses back to his homeland to bring His people out of Egypt: OUT of slavery and INTO a plentiful and spacious land “flowing with milk and honey.”
3) Moses feels inadequate for such a big task. “Who
am I”? that I should do such a thing?! "I have never been eloquent."
4)
God follows with a promise…. "Certainly I will be with you." The God of the universe is promising to
actually be with him. This is BIG!
5) As a sign God commands, “when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God at this mountain.” V.12
6) God gives Moses very specific instruction for his dealings with the Pharaoh and how he would command Irael's freedom. In His message to Israel, His very own people, out of all the things God could have told His people in this time (like my Son will suffer greater, you are not trusting me, you have rebelled time and time again) He instructs Moses to relay that "I am indeed concerned about you and what has been done to you." Not only did God hear their cries and see their afflictions, He wanted His people to know that He does indeed care. He sees them, is concerned, wants to meet them where they are, and this is how He was going to do it: through Moses, and eventually eternally and intirely through His Son. How personal of a God do we have?!
What I gathered (I'm no theologian!)...
It’s not unusual for God to send
us out to do things we are fearful of or feel inadequate in. In fact, if we felt fully adequate in ourselves something's probably misconstrued. Yet He meets us with a significantly greater promise that far outweighs that fear. “CERTAINLY I will be WITH you”. He is holding my (your) right hand. My walls are continually before Him and I am held in the palm of His hand.
I
may not have some radical, grandiose calling like freeing an entire people from the enslavement of a suppressive and
godless nation. But I do have a calling
to go somewhere and leave my best friends, comfortable places, church that I
love and faces I adore to move towards who and where God would have me to be (Macon, for now). We face decisions daily that seem like a mountain of a task: adopting a child, mourning a
child, being faithful in a job we feel is menial, telling a friend about Jesus,
loving someone who has betrayed us or treated us wrongly, breaking up with a
gf/bf, proposing to a gf, considering going overseas, going overseas, spending your free-time with a widow from your church, choosing
to give instead of buying that next movie ticket or fashionable cardigan, denying a
job offer, accepting a job offer, or it may be something like redeeming a
nation… All to fulfill our call of making disciples of all nations. Each one of these are significant and such radical decisions can only come from faith in the “I AM”
God (v.14). He simply is. There is nothing like Him yet everything is created, sustained, and continually governed by Him. I AM. Try meditating on that for a few minutes and
not be blown away!
Our only response to all of this is worship (v.12).
I must not neglect to share/remind in brief what this story of Moses points to. The greater story: the only sufficient sacrifice to account for our continual rebellion and immeasurable offenses to this holy God who cannot be compared, balanced, or paralleled with any other perceived or unperceived thing.
The life, death, and resurrection of His very own Son, Jesus, who took on Himself the punishment that we deserve, freeing not only our physical bodies but also our souls eternally from the wages of death and giving us the free gift of life. He has, is, and will be faithful to fulfill His covenant with His people: that He would be our God and we would be His people. He will walk among us and we will know Him. John 10:27
