Daily Manna (Coffee with Jesus)

Who will have the last word? In an ongoing feud, there will be that final moment when opposing sides want to have the last word before turning on their heels to leave the scene. We humans seem to demand having the “last word” in any argument as one last line of defense and push for power.  But what happens when God has the last word?  God is the One who has all power, wisdom, and strength to accomplish His good, pleasing, and perfect will.  What God says will happen—happens!

When God speaks, all should listen!  After nine other debilitating plagues, Pharoah still refuses to listen.  God knew he would not give in, so now God will force him to lose what he holds dear—his first-born son.

In this passage, nine of the ten plagues in Egypt had already occurred. Pharaoh, despite the pleadings of Moses at their last in-person meeting, refused to give in. God will prepare His people, the Israelites, for this last plague of death with what they must do to protect their first born from death.  Because of hardened hearts with refusal to repent to God; the rescue and redemption of Israel will require the sacrifice of Egypt’s first-born sons. 

Exodus 11

The Plague on the Firstborn

11 Now the Lord had said to Moses, “I will bring one more plague on Pharaoh and on Egypt. After that, he will let you go from here, and when he does, he will drive you out completely. ² Tell the people that men and women alike are to ask their neighbors for articles of silver and gold.” ³ (The Lord made the Egyptians favorably disposed toward the people, and Moses himself was highly regarded in Egypt by Pharaoh’s officials and by the people.)

⁴ So Moses said, “This is what the Lord says: ‘About midnight I will go throughout Egypt. ⁵ Every firstborn son in Egypt will die, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sits on the throne, to the firstborn son of the female slave, who is at her hand mill, and all the firstborn of the cattle as well. ⁶ There will be loud wailing throughout Egypt—worse than there has ever been or ever will be again. ⁷ But among the Israelites not a dog will bark at any person or animal.’ Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel. ⁸ All these officials of yours will come to me, bowing down before me and saying, ‘Go, you and all the people who follow you!’ After that I will leave.” Then Moses, hot with anger, left Pharaoh.

⁹ The Lord had said to Moses, “Pharaoh will refuse to listen to you—so that my wonders may be multiplied in Egypt.” ¹⁰ Moses and Aaron performed all these wonders before Pharaoh, but the Lord hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he would not let the Israelites go out of his country.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Chapter 12 will outline the exact instruction from God to His people which we will talk over tomorrow.  But realize what is happening in the court of the Pharoah.  Moses will no longer plead with Pharoah to let the people of the Hebrew nation go.  Moses has done and said what he was told by God to do.  Now, God will show His power to a hardhearted leader who thinks he is in control.  God will bring Pharaoh to his knees through the death of his own first-born son. Imagine the mourning cries and wailing of Egyptian families over the deaths of all their first-born sons! Every family must be in state of shock.  Pharoah’s grief and shock, however, will give the God’s people, who have been prepared for the journey by God, to leave town for good—with no looking back. 

Hold this thought as we continue:  God did not protect the Israelites because they were better than the Egyptians, but because they were his people. God gives grace to his followers—whether through the blood of a lamb or the blood of the Lamb, Jesus—not based on merit but on his loving-kindness.

God is a God of miracles. God will not force His will but He will provide opportunities for people to change their minds and attitudes by His powerful works seen by all men and women.  Warren Wiersbe comments;

“Moses told the Israelites that the time had come for them to collect their unpaid wages for all the work they and their ancestors had done as slaves in Egypt. The Hebrew word for “ask or request” is sometimes incorrectly translated “borrow” in this verse. The Israelites didn’t intend to return what the Egyptians gave them, for that wealth was payment for an outstanding debt that Egypt owed to Israel.

God had promised Abraham that his descendants would leave Egypt with great wealth (Genesis 15:14), and he repeated that promise to Moses (Exodus 3:21, 22). God had given His servant Moses great respect among the Egyptians, and now He would give the Israelites great favor with the Egyptians, who would freely give their wealth to them (12:36, 37).” Wiersbe Study Bible

As we read the Book of Genesis, we learn that God often rejected the firstborn son and chose the next son to carry on the family line and receive God’s special blessing. God chose Abel, and then Seth, but not Cain; He chose Shem, not Japheth; Isaac, not Ishmael; and Jacob, not Esau.  These choices not only magnify God’s sovereign grace, but they are a symbolic way of saying that it is not our first birth that makes us right with God.  It is in our second birth of repenting to God of our sins that clears the debt and makes us right with God.  It is laying down our will for God’s good, perfect, and pleasing will.  It is not conforming to the world around us but transforming into a new person who follows what God says because of our newly forming, lovingly intimate relationship with God.  We love Him because He first loved us. (See Romans 12:1-2; 1 John 4:19)

God’s mercy should have brought Pharaoh to see his need for repentance to God; instead, he repeatedly hardened his heart and refused. Pharaoh’s officials humbled themselves before Moses; why couldn’t Pharaoh follow their example? Here’s why, “Pride goes before destruction, and haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverb 16:18). Pharoah’s pride cost him the life of his son.

Lord,

Cleanse our hearts of all that does not belong there and is not of you.  Remove the pride of demanding that we be in control of all things.  Renew our minds, transform our behaviors.  Refresh our souls with your tender mercies, fresh for us each morning. Restore the joy of your salvation at work within us by the power and leading of your Holy Spirit.  Lead us. Lead me all day long and into the night. I’m listening for I am yours.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Before we left the state we were born and raised, God prepared our hearts, minds, and souls for the leaving of all that we knew as “normal” living.  We were called to go a thousand miles away to another state (and another culture) to do God’s work.  I look back on this momentous event and stand in awe of our God who prepared the way for our leaving months ahead of the actual departure without fully realizing what God was doing in us before doing another work through us.  There was the conclusion of my master degree in educational leadership, wrapping up my last school year as a public school teacher, the rearranging of our finances to make the move, preparing our home to be put on the market, cleaning out the school supplies I would no longer need, preparing the parents for our leaving as well as our almost adult children still living with us and telling our church what the Lord was about to do in us. 

There were many other things on the list as well but you get the picture.  God calls, He prepares, He equips by changing our minds and rearranging our lives for the next work, and then He prepares our hearts for the leaving so we won’t turn back.  Leaving what you once knew and were comfortable with, even though it was hard, is not as easy as it sounds.  God also prepares us spiritually, emotionally, and mentally for the trip.  He also prepares the hearts of those we are leaving behind—who do not want us to leave.

Exodus 6

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: Because of my mighty hand he will let them go; because of my mighty hand he will drive them out of his country.”

² God also said to Moses, “I am the Lord. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the Lord I did not make myself fully known to them. ⁴ I also established my covenant with them to give them the land of Canaan, where they resided as foreigners. ⁵ Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant.

⁶ “Therefore, say to the Israelites: ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. I will free you from being slaves to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with mighty acts of judgment. ⁷ I will take you as my own people, and I will be your God. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from under the yoke of the Egyptians. ⁸ And I will bring you to the land I swore with uplifted hand to give to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob. I will give it to you as a possession. I am the Lord.’”

⁹ Moses reported this to the Israelites, but they did not listen to him because of their discouragement and harsh labor.

¹⁰ Then the Lord said to Moses, ¹¹ “Go, tell Pharaoh king of Egypt to let the Israelites go out of his country.”

¹² But Moses said to the Lord, “If the Israelites will not listen to me, why would Pharaoh listen to me, since I speak with faltering lips?”

Family Record of Moses and Aaron

¹³ Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron about the Israelites and Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he commanded them to bring the Israelites out of Egypt.

¹⁴ These were the heads of their families:

The sons of Reuben the firstborn son of Israel were Hanok and Pallu, Hezron and Karmi. These were the clans of Reuben.

¹⁵ The sons of Simeon were Jemuel, Jamin, Ohad, Jakin, Zohar and Shaul the son of a Canaanite woman. These were the clans of Simeon.

¹⁶ These were the names of the sons of Levi according to their records: Gershon, Kohath and Merari. Levi lived 137 years.

¹⁷ The sons of Gershon, by clans, were Libni and Shimei.

¹⁸ The sons of Kohath were Amram, Izhar, Hebron and Uzziel. Kohath lived 133 years.

¹⁹ The sons of Merari were Mahli and Mushi.

These were the clans of Levi according to their records.

²⁰ Amram married his father’s sister Jochebed, who bore him Aaron and Moses. Amram lived 137 years.

²¹ The sons of Izhar were Korah, Nepheg and Zikri.

²² The sons of Uzziel were Mishael, Elzaphan and Sithri.

²³ Aaron married Elisheba, daughter of Amminadab and sister of Nahshon, and she bore him Nadab and Abihu, Eleazar and Ithamar.

²⁴ The sons of Korah were Assir, Elkanah and Abiasaph. These were the Korahite clans.

²⁵ Eleazar son of Aaron married one of the daughters of Putiel, and she bore him Phinehas.

These were the heads of the Levite families, clan by clan.

²⁶ It was this Aaron and Moses to whom the Lord said, “Bring the Israelites out of Egypt by their divisions.” ²⁷ They were the ones who spoke to Pharaoh king of Egypt about bringing the Israelites out of Egypt—this same Moses and Aaron.

Aaron to Speak for Moses

²⁸ Now when the Lord spoke to Moses in Egypt, ²⁹ he said to him, “I am the Lord. Tell Pharaoh king of Egypt everything I tell you.”

³⁰ But Moses said to the Lord, “Since I speak with faltering lips, why would Pharaoh listen to me?”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God frees His people for their good and His glory.  He will use a faltering Moses and his brother Aaron as a team to make it happen.  God is already at work in His people, preparing their hearts, organizing them into family divisions, while building their faith in the promise that this will indeed happen! God is at work in building the confidence and faith in His leader, Moses.  Moses has a lot to learn as he leaves the shepherd life for the life of a leader, the ambassador of God, to tell the Pharoah, that God has spoken—”Let My people go.” 

But we are not there yet.  Pharoah sees no advantage to losing the slaves that do all the work in building his kingdom.  Meanwhile Moses is looking inward, reminding  (nagging) God about his disabilities instead of looking upward at God’s power to accomplish His Plan of Rescue.  (But, we don’t do that, do we?  Mm, yes, we do.)

When Moses complained, God reminded him, not once but four times; “I am the LORD.”  And seven times, God said, “I will.” When we know that God is in control and we claim His promises, then we can experience peace and courage in the battles of life. God promised to bring Israel out of Egypt, free them from bondage, and take them into their Promised Land. At the heart of the seven “I will” promises is “I will take you as My people” (v. 7), which is the basis for all that God did for the Israelites.

God provided His blessed assurance to a very unsure Moses.  God assured Moses that He felt the burdens of His people and was working on their behalf (6:5; see 2:24). Everything was working according to His plan, and nothing God had planned would fail.

Whenever we feel the Lord has abandoned us and doesn’t really care, we need to remember His assuring words, “casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (1 Peter 5:7).  We have a compassionate God who fails not!

God always has a reason.  This genealogy isn’t here by accident, for it’s the Lord’s way of reminding us, the readers, that God had prepared Moses and Aaron for their ministry in Egypt. Their arrival in Jacob’s family was part of His providential working.

God’s calling means God’s enabling, and what He begins He always completes (Ephesians 2:10; Philippians 1:6). 

Lord,

Thank you for your reminders to reassure our hearts, minds, and souls. Thank you for cleansing our hearts, renewing our minds, refreshing our souls, and continually restoring the joy and peace of your salvation at work within us.

In Jesus Name, Amen

Our thinking about who God is and what He does can be a bit too simplistic at times.  We think when we turn to God, all will be rosy, even though in the back of our minds are the words Jesus said, “In this world, you will have trouble.”  Admit it.  We are surprised, shocked even, when after giving ourselves to God; troubles come or what He said to do gets too hard to do!  When God calls us to a specific task, He will give us all we need to complete it—but in His way, in His timing, by His power leading us.  This requires tuning our listening skills to the extreme mode.

God is Truth.  God prepares Moses with the Truth of what will happen when he approaches hard-hearted Pharoah with God’s plan to release His people from bondage to worship Him. God sends Moses with the help of his brother and the support of the team of Elders of the Hebrew people.  God warns Moses about Pharoah’s heart with “Moses, Pharoah will say no, but there is more to come that I will do to make this happen.”  Step by step, God will lead Moses as Moses leads His people back to Him.

Sometimes I wonder if we quit when it gets hard before God makes it better. And sometimes I wonder if we assume what God wants without asking Him?

Exodus 5

Bricks Without Straw

5 Afterward Moses and Aaron went to Pharaoh and said, “This is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘Let my people go, so that they may hold a festival to me in the wilderness.’”

² Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”

³ Then they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Now let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God, or he may strike us with plagues or with the sword.”

⁴ But the king of Egypt said, “Moses and Aaron, why are you taking the people away from their labor? Get back to your work!” ⁵ Then Pharaoh said, “Look, the people of the land are now numerous, and you are stopping them from working.”

⁶ That same day Pharaoh gave this order to the slave drivers and overseers in charge of the people: ⁷ “You are no longer to supply the people with straw for making bricks; let them go and gather their own straw. ⁸ But require them to make the same number of bricks as before; don’t reduce the quota. They are lazy; that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ ⁹ Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.”

¹⁰ Then the slave drivers and the overseers went out and said to the people, “This is what Pharaoh says: ‘I will not give you any more straw. ¹¹ Go and get your own straw wherever you can find it, but your work will not be reduced at all.’” ¹² So the people scattered all over Egypt to gather stubble to use for straw. ¹³ The slave drivers kept pressing them, saying, “Complete the work required of you for each day, just as when you had straw.” ¹⁴ And Pharaoh’s slave drivers beat the Israelite overseers they had appointed, demanding, “Why haven’t you met your quota of bricks yesterday or today, as before?”

¹⁵ Then the Israelite overseers went and appealed to Pharaoh: “Why have you treated your servants this way? ¹⁶ Your servants are given no straw, yet we are told, ‘Make bricks!’ Your servants are being beaten, but the fault is with your own people.”

¹⁷ Pharaoh said, “Lazy, that’s what you are—lazy! That is why you keep saying, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to the Lord.’ ¹⁸ Now get to work. You will not be given any straw, yet you must produce your full quota of bricks.”

¹⁹ The Israelite overseers realized they were in trouble when they were told, “You are not to reduce the number of bricks required of you for each day.” ²⁰ When they left Pharaoh, they found Moses and Aaron waiting to meet them, ²¹ and they said, “May the Lord look on you and judge you! You have made us obnoxious to Pharaoh and his officials and have put a sword in their hand to kill us.”

God Promises Deliverance

²² Moses returned to the Lord and said, “Why, Lord, why have you brought trouble on this people? Is this why you sent me? ²³ Ever since I went to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has brought trouble on this people, and you have not rescued your people at all.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

God calls, equips, and sends each one of us into the fire of deceit that rages by the Enemy against God and His created daily.  We must ask ourselves; do we really believe God?  Do we really believe all God says as really real? What we believe, truly believe from the center of our being will be displayed in our daily responses to God and others.  Sometimes when the going get tough the tough get obnoxious.

Instead of going to Pharaoh to complain, the foremen should have gone to Moses and Aaron and suggested that they summon the elders and have a prayer meeting to remind themselves of the promises God had given Israel and claimed them by faith. What a difference that would have made for them and for their leaders! Alas, during the next forty years, complaining about God’s will and criticizing God’s leaders would be characteristic of the people of Israel; but are God’s people much different today?

God has given us a work to do with purpose.  First is requires believing and surrendering to Jesus in grateful humility; knowing what He did to save us becomes our hope and our blessed assurance as we listen and move on God’s command to help others escape and be rescued by Jesus.

God uses the Rescued to guide others who need rescued from the slavery of sin to being set free by Jesus.  It is by believing in the rescue of Jesus that we can come boldly to God!  The bonus is eternal life beginning with an intimate loving, growing relationship with God upon believing in Jesus.  Because the Enemy of God hates seeing believers on their knees, praying in Jesus Name—so life will get worse before it gets better.  Trust the process that actually serves to build and solidify our faith!

Paul explains our call from God:

“Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. ¹⁵ He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.

¹⁶ So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! ¹⁷ This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

¹⁸ And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him. ¹⁹ For God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them. And he gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation. ²⁰ So we are Christ’s ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, “Come back to God!” ²¹ For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” 2 Corinthians 5:

Learn from Moses who is learning!  Faced with fierce, unexpected anger, Moses did what all spiritual leaders must do when the going is tough: He took his burden to the Lord and honestly talked to Him about the situation. It’s easy to see that Moses was disappointed and distressed. He blamed God for the way Pharaoh was mistreating the Israelites, and he accused Him of doing nothing. “Why did You send me?” he asked. In other words, “Are You going to keep Your promises to me or not?”

God’s chosen servants must expect opposition and misunderstanding, because that’s part of what it means to be a leader; and leaders must know how to get alone with God, pour out their hearts, and seek His strength and wisdom. Spiritual leaders must be bold before people but broken before God and must cling to God’s promises and do His will even when everything seems to be against them.

Lord,

We repent of quitting to soon when the going gets tough and scary.  But it is in these times that we can grow closer to you as we seek your will and plan for each moment in time on our journey.  Thank you for being with us always. Thank you for wisdom to know when to go and when to stay; when to speak and when to be silent and wait on you.  We know that all things work together for good for those who believe in you.

In Jesus Name, Amen

^“So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2, MSG

Moses, the one who took another man’s life and ran from the scene of the crime, is living comfortably and peacefully, pursuing the quiet life as a shepherd.  Moses fit into the shepherd culture easily and didn’t seem to miss the palace life.  But God, who uses every circumstance and situation to accomplish his will, is stirring Moses’ heart by igniting a fire within him.  The bush is not the only thing burning as God speaks.

I surrender all
I surrender all
All to Thee my blessed Savior
I surrender all… I can hear this sweet hymn of surrender echoing in the background as we read this very precious, powerful, and personal encounter between God and Moses.  Observe how Moses surrenders to God in part and then the whole.  And now, episode two, season one.

Exodus 4

Signs for Moses

Moses answered, “What if they do not believe me or listen to me and say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you’?”

² Then the Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?”

“A staff,” he replied.

³ The Lord said, “Throw it on the ground.”

Moses threw it on the ground and it became a snake, and he ran from it. ⁴ Then the Lord said to him, “Reach out your hand and take it by the tail.” So Moses reached out and took hold of the snake and it turned back into a staff in his hand. ⁵ “This,” said the Lord, “is so that they may believe that the Lord, the God of their fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has appeared to you.”

⁶ Then the Lord said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous—it had become as white as snow.

⁷ “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

⁸ Then the Lord said, “If they do not believe you or pay attention to the first sign, they may believe the second. ⁹ But if they do not believe these two signs or listen to you, take some water from the Nile and pour it on the dry ground. The water you take from the river will become blood on the ground.”

¹⁰ Moses said to the Lord, “Pardon your servant, Lord. I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue.”

¹¹ The Lord said to him, “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? ¹² Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

¹³ But Moses said, “Pardon your servant, Lord. Please send someone else.”

¹⁴ Then the Lord’s anger burned against Moses and he said, “What about your brother, Aaron the Levite? I know he can speak well. He is already on his way to meet you, and he will be glad to see you. ¹⁵ You shall speak to him and put words in his mouth; I will help both of you speak and will teach you what to do. ¹⁶ He will speak to the people for you, and it will be as if he were your mouth and as if you were God to him. ¹⁷ But take this staff in your hand so you can perform the signs with it.”

Moses Returns to Egypt

¹⁸ Then Moses went back to Jethro his father-in-law and said to him, “Let me return to my own people in Egypt to see if any of them are still alive.”

Jethro said, “Go, and I wish you well.”

¹⁹ Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all those who wanted to kill you are dead.” ²⁰ So Moses took his wife and sons, put them on a donkey and started back to Egypt. And he took the staff of God in his hand.

²¹ The Lord said to Moses, “When you return to Egypt, see that you perform before Pharaoh all the wonders I have given you the power to do. But I will harden his heart so that he will not let the people go. ²² Then say to Pharaoh, ‘This is what the Lord says: Israel is my firstborn son, ²³ and I told you, “Let my son go, so he may worship me.” But you refused to let him go; so I will kill your firstborn son.’”

²⁴ At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met Moses and was about to kill him. ²⁵ But Zipporah took a flint knife, cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it.^[c] “Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me,” she said. ²⁶ So the Lord let him alone. (At that time she said “bridegroom of blood,” referring to circumcision.)

²⁷ The Lord said to Aaron, “Go into the wilderness to meet Moses.” So he met Moses at the mountain of God and kissed him. ²⁸ Then Moses told Aaron everything the Lord had sent him to say, and also about all the signs he had commanded him to perform.

²⁹ Moses and Aaron brought together all the elders of the Israelites, ³⁰ and Aaron told them everything the Lord had said to Moses. He also performed the signs before the people, ³¹ and they believed. And when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Was Moses “all in”?  We can learn much from Moses’ first responses to God.

Moses completely missed the message of God’s name and miraculous power. “I Am” is all that we need in every circumstance of life, and it’s foolish for us to argue, “I am not.” If God can turn a staff into a snake and a snake into a staff, if He can cause and cure leprosy, and if He can turn water into blood, then surely God can enable Moses to speak His Word with power. Moses was looking at himself instead of looking to God.

The God who made us is able to use the gifts and abilities He has given us to accomplish the tasks He assigns to us.

Was Moses manifesting an attitude of pride or true humility? Forty years earlier, he felt perfectly adequate to face the enemy and act on behalf of his people; but now he’s backing off and professing himself to be a worthless failure.

But humility isn’t thinking poorly of ourselves; it’s simply not thinking of ourselves at all but making God everything. The humble servant thinks only of God’s will and God’s glory, not his or her own inadequacy, success, or failure. Moses was clothing his pride and unbelief in a hollow confession of weakness.

“Lord, please, send anybody else!” was Moses’ final plea. Moses calls Him “Lord” and yet was refusing to obey His orders. (See also Luke 6:46; Acts 10:14). Most of us understand that attitude because we’ve made the same mistake. We regularly resist, ignore, or deflect God’s commands—just as Moses did.

We need to remember that if God isn’t Lord of all, He isn’t Lord at all.

God knows us better than we know ourselves, so we must trust Him and obey what He tells us to do. When we tell God our weaknesses, we aren’t sharing anything He doesn’t already know.  Moses was not the only one, many throughout God’s Word struggled because of inability to grasp all that God wants to do in us.

The will of God will never lead you where the power of God can’t enable you, so walk by faith in His promises.

Be careful what we ask of God!  God appointed Aaron to be the spokesperson for Moses, but Aaron wasn’t always a help to his brother. It was Aaron who cooperated with the people in making the gold calf (Exodus 32).  Aaron and his sister Miriam were critical of Moses and his wife and brought trouble to the camp. Moses got a concession from God and had to live with the consequences.

One of the most painful judgments God can send is to let His people have their own way.

Worry slanders the promises of God.  Moses had expressed human worry and fear of the unknown based on his assumptions of what he thought would happen. Oh, dear friends, worry is probably our worst enemy to all the God wants to do in and through us, right?! Most of us respond first with; God, “what if…”.  Moses assumed that the Israelite elders would not believe his message or accept his leadership, but they did, and so did the rest of the nation when they saw the demonstration of God’s power in the signs. Not only did they believer, their response was praise to God in worship!  Rescue is on the way!

When we fully realize the depth of love and concern God has for us; is our first response to God worship in grateful thanksgiving?

Worship is the logical response of God’s people to God’s grace and goodness.

Back to the first question—Was Moses all in?  Eventually. 

God became frustrated with Moses but never gave up on him.  Oh, how we must frustrate God when we ask for less than God’s best for us.  But God never gives up on us.  It is not in His nature.  So we must never give up on God.

Looking ahead, we will read and observe events that proved that Moses was very capable of speaking God’s words with mighty power, both to his own people and to the king of Egypt. God in a surrender Moses did that.  As the history of Israel unfolds, you find Moses delivering some eloquent messages in the power of the Lord. The Book of Deuteronomy records his magnificent farewell speech at the end of his life on earth. 

Are we all in?  Jesus is our Rescuer who saved us from all that is not God in us.  To Him be the glory, honor, and praise!  Do we trust Him?

Lord,

Thank you for all the gold nuggets of truth that stirs our consciences this morning.  I will meditate on your great works portrayed through all those who believed and followed you all the days of their lives.  Cleanse and purify our hearts, renew our thinking as we fix our attention on you.  Refresh our souls by your mercy.  Restore the joy of you in us and us in you as we lay ourselves before you as an offering to you.  I surrender all.

In Jesus Name, Amen

To say there is no God is foolish.  Only fools are so entrenched in the world around us that truth escapes our view and blocks our understanding of all that is God.  Only fools are led by the nose to places not of our choice but we follow to feel better about ourselves.  Only fools seek belonging by acceptance from anyone who will give us a nod of approval.  Only fools feed daily on diets of self-satisfaction, thinking we deserve all we can get, along with other lies evil dishes out to us. 

Only fools sustain our existence on the lies we tell ourselves that we can make it on our own in life—without interference from God—the one who we have declared does not exist!  Only fools slander and persecute others to feel better about ourselves with hopes of those around us will think more highly of us.  Only fools succumb to the enticement to think we are in charge and in control of ourselves and everything around us.  Only fools think we can handle whatever life throws at us.  Only fools think we are better than God.  Only fools think we can hide from God.  “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23)

Then God appears in a way that gets our attention.  When we least expect it, God intervenes and steps into our everyday life. Then God does the impossible right in front of us.  We can’t help but notice.  Our present view of the world fades into the background, out of focus, so that we only see the holy Presence of God.  Everything about our foolish existence is challenged as God speaks wisdom into the impossible miraculous act of His power.  We listen to His Voice because the noises and voices of the world has been blocked out.  This is God. 

Moses has been living and working as a shepherd for his father-in-law, Jethro for a few years.  Moses was “on the run” to escape punishment from committing murder of an Egyptian who was beating on the Hebrew people of his birth who were slaves. At that time, he may have thought he was coming to their aid, defending them and maybe even himself of the bully.  But nevertheless, Moses took another man’s life and ran from the anger of Pharoah’s household. Moses ran from the God of his forefathers.  Moses was living a new “normal” as a shepherd living near the mountain of God, Horeb. 

Then God.

Exodus 3

Moses and the Burning Bush

3 Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. ² There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. ³ So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.”

⁴ When the Lord saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”

And Moses said, “Here I am.”

⁵ “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” ⁶ Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God.

⁷ The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heardthem crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. ⁸ So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. ⁹ And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. ¹⁰ So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.”

¹¹ But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?”

¹² And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.”

¹³ Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?”

¹⁴ God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

¹⁵ God also said to Moses, “Say to the Israelites, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob—has sent me to you.’

“This is my name forever,
    the name you shall call me
    from generation to generation.

¹⁶ “Go, assemble the elders of Israel and say to them, ‘The Lord, the God of your fathers—the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—appeared to me and said: I have watched over you and have seen what has been done to you in Egypt. ¹⁷ And I have promised to bring you up out of your misery in Egypt into the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—a land flowing with milk and honey.’

¹⁸ “The elders of Israel will listen to you. Then you and the elders are to go to the king of Egypt and say to him, ‘The Lord, the God of the Hebrews, has met with us. Let us take a three-day journey into the wilderness to offer sacrifices to the Lord our God.’ ¹⁹ But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. ²⁰ So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them. After that, he will let you go.

²¹ “And I will make the Egyptians favorably disposed toward this people, so that when you leave you will not go empty-handed. ²² Every woman is to ask her neighbor and any woman living in her house for articles of silver and gold and for clothing, which you will put on your sons and daughters. And so you will plunder the Egyptians.”

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

We cannot miss what God is saying to us today!  God speaks through whatever form it takes to get our attention and draw us to who He is. I don’t know about you, but God’s statements to Moses about who He and how He works clarifies and strengthens my resolved faith in God because of who He sent to rescue us—Jesus Christ, our Rescuer and Lord!

• I AM is the Name of God who was, is and always will be!
• I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 
• I have indeed seen.
• I have heard.
• I am concerned.
• I have come to rescue.
• I will be with you.  I will go before you. 
• I know the situation so I am sending you.
• I AM who I am.

God follows up who He is with what He will do.

• I have watched over you.
• I promise to bring you out of misery to a land that will provide all you need.
• I have a plan to set you free by my outstretched arms.
• You will not go empty-handed.  I will provide.

God’s plans for us contain a lot of surprises. God leads and provides the means to reach his goals for our good and His glory!  Depend on Him.  Live expectant, hope-filled lives!  God does not disappoint.  It is not in His nature.

The key question in life is not “How strong am I?” but rather “How strong is God?” When we focus on God’s power and strength, not ours, we see the world more closely from God’s perspective.  Pause to thank God for who He is and what has done, is doing and will do in our lives.  Let all of who God is occupy our minds today. For it is by His strength, power, and wisdom that Life becomes rich in love, joy, and peace because of His Love, Mercy and Grace generously given to us. 

Moses’ first lesson by God about God: “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”  Where God is, is holy.

God’s Presence is with us always. That was, is and always will be what He promised.  Can we camp on that thought for a minute?  God is truly with us, living deep within our souls, all because of the removal of our repented sins.  It is by Jesus’ sacrifice taking our punishment and paying in full what we deserved but did not pay that we are made holy.  So, where we are standing (or sitting) at this very moment is holy. 

It is God who makes all He has created holy; even the ground we walk on when we abide in Him, remain in Him, staying so close that to Him that we hear his faintest whisper and obey Him.

With these fifteen words God defines our roles. God is holy. We are made holy by Him.

Pause to pray and reflect:  What is my response to the holiness of God?

Lord,

You have provided many “burning bush” moments in my life that has redirected my thinking and behaviors over the years.  Thank you for these holy moments on my journey to be more and more like you, dear Jesus, and less like my sin nature.  Thank you for cleansing my heart and purifying my soul in those moments. There are not enough words to express my gratitude for your strength, power, and wisdom that is more than enough for living this life in preparation for the next on the holiest ground of all—with you always and forevermore.

In Jesus Name,  Amen

Nature is what people think of as pre-wiring and is influenced by genetic inheritance and other biological factors. Nurture is generally understood as the influence of external factors in the environment in which we live that exposes individuals to new experiences daily that form their thinking and ultimately their responses to life. In other words, experience is a good teacher no matter who you are “wired.”  From a scientific perspective, “nature” refers to the biological/genetic predispositions that impact one’s human traits — physical, emotional, and intellectual. “Nurture,” in contrast, describes the influence of learning and other “environmental” factors on these traits.

But God’s perspective comes from a much higher thinking—higher than humans!

God’s Word, our teacher about God, tells us how God created all of us.  God knows us from the inside out and outside in.  God knew us before we were born. God shaped us in the womb.  God sees and knows what is in our hearts.  God created us with purpose.  God created us to worship Him and love Him back. God’s love for us in unchanging and his mercies are new each day.  God provides for His created who believe and trust Him.  God will use unbelievers in his work to protect us as His will is fulfilled.  The Psalms are filled with this truth about God! 

God, who created all, is in and over all, is involved.  He uses all our experiences in life to teach us as he leads us to his perfect and pleasing will and purpose for our existence on earth—all for His glory and our good!  The nature versus nurture thinking is merely the means to greater wisdom and thinking. God uses all to guide us to all He is and wants us to be!  

God will use everything in the life of Moses to lead Him to a much greater purpose with a plan to rescue the Hebrews from tortuous slavery.  As we read, observe the life of Moses from God’s perspective.  God is in all the details!  Watch as he steers Moses to where He needs to be with what God wants Him to do. With God, everything changes in the life of Moses, born a Hebrew but raised an Egyptian.  With God, both nature and nurture instilled in Moses will be used as influencers; but it is the power of God who will work through Moses to lead the Hebrew nation out of bondage to worship Him freely.

Moses might have been born of a Hebrew couple, but he was schooled as an Egyptian. Watch and learn how the story of God in Moses displays the awesome power of our sovereign God Almighty!  God has a plan. God will see to it that the plan is fulfilled. 

Exodus 2

The Birth of Moses

Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, ² and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. ³ But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. ⁴ His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.

⁵ Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. ⁶ She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said.

⁷ Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?”

⁸“Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. ⁹ Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. ¹⁰ When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

Moses Flees to Midian

¹¹ One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. ¹² Looking this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. ¹³ The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?”

¹⁴ The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.”

¹⁵ When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. ¹⁶ Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. ¹⁷ Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock.

¹⁸ When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”

¹⁹ They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”

²⁰ “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

²¹ Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. ²² Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become a foreigner in a foreign land.”

²³ During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. ²⁴ God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. ²⁵ So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

WHAT DO WE LEARN—HOW DO WE RESPOND?

Moses is not perfect.  He has lived the privileged life in the palace as the adopted son of Pharoah’s daughter.  While out strolling the grounds, he sees up close the horrid acts of torture on his people of birth held in bondage and his heart goes out to them.  Moses kills the Egyptian bully and hides him in the sand.  Oh, young Moses, did you really thing that would work?  The Hebrews know that his act of murder, though well intentioned, will serve to make matters worse for them. 

Do we jump into arguments, “following our hearts,” thinking we have the power to “fix” the situation?  Yes, we all do it.  What do we learn from God about ourselves?

God does not give up on Moses.  Moses may be “on the run” from the Hebrews and the Egyptians who are angry with him but God knows what Moses needs before Moses knows!  God guides Moses to another, non-Egyptian environment to work on his inner being among those who love God and follow in His ways.  What do we learn?  God does not give up on us!  When we think all is lost, that is the time God does His best work in us!

ICYMI—God’s involvement began from the birth of Moses to his marriage (so far):

• God used a baby’s tears to control the heart of a powerful princess, and He used Miriam’s words to arrange for the baby’s mother to raise the boy and get paid for it! When the Lord wants to accomplish a mighty work, He often starts by sending a baby. 😉
• Moses spent his first forty years (Acts 7:23) serving in the Egyptian bureaucracy. (Some students think he was being groomed to be the next pharaoh.) Egypt seems the least likely place for God to start training a leader, but God’s ways are not our ways.
• Moses’ failure to help free the Israelites must have devastated him. That’s why God took him to Midian and made him a shepherd for forty years. He had to learn that deliverance would come from God’s hand, not his own hand.
• The man who was “mighty in words and deeds” is now in the lonely pastures taking care of stubborn sheep, but that was just the kind of preparation he needed for leading a nation of stubborn people. Israel was God’s special flock (Ps. 100:3) and Moses his chosen shepherd. 
• Moses’ forty years of waiting and working prepared him for a lifetime of faithful ministry. God doesn’t lay hands suddenly on His servants but takes time to equip them for their work.
• God is not done with Moses yet—there’s much more to come!

How do we respond?  Be still, let go, and let God do his work in us today as our humbled response to His good, pleasing, and perfect will.

“^1-2 So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” Romans 12:1-2, MSG

When the right time comes, God immediately goes to work.  God is not finished with us yet, either!

Lord, God,

You are our amazing God who hears, leads, protects, provides, heals, teaches, and equips us for life here until we get there with you!  After reading how you lead a princess to the tears of a baby who needed to be protected, I know there is nothing you do not notice in our lives.  There is nothing you will not do in protection of us as we seek you and your purpose for our lives!  There is nothing you do not notice because you are our God who sees!  Wow.  Mere words cannot express the gratitude I have right now!  To you be the glory, honor, and praise.  I give you my life for you are Life to me!

In Jesus Name, Our Rescue and our Lord, Amen