Posts Tagged ‘moses’

Don’t stop having confidence in God.  He is always faithful, even when we are faithless.  What’s going on right now that you feel as if you’re banging your head against a wall?  Where has life punched you in the gut?  How has faith in God or following God in faith led you to a place of questioning?  These are all amazing questions that have real effects on our lives as we follow Jesus in our families, with our jobs and money, with our futures as we radically obey him.

Consider Moses with me in Exodus 5.  He follows through in deep obedience what God’s mission is for his life.  What happens next?  Life happens just as it is supposed to happen, right?  All the dominoes line up perfectly because of his obedience, right?  Life makes sense and expectations are met, right?  Wrong.

Life gets a heck of a lot harder for him as he follows through in radical obedience to God.  His people’s lives are affected negatively because of his obedience.  Wow!  Can you imagine your family being affected negatively because of your obedience to God?  How would that make you feel?  This is Moses.  And Moses’ life got pretty murky once he followed God in obedience.

He had questions.  Lots.  Listen to Exodus 5:22-23:  “o Lord, why have you done evil to this people?  Why did you ever send me?  For since I came to Pharaoh to speak in your name, he has done evil to this people, and you have not delivered your people at all.” (ESV)

Ever feel like Moses?  Is life hard for you now in your situation because of obedience to God’s call or God’s direction or God’s standards?

Don’t give up.  Moses didn’t.  God answered Moses in a very amazing way.  Read Exodus 6-7 and count how many times Moses hears from God, “I am the LORD.” God’s answer for Moses’ questions and frustration at this time was for him to believe and know that He is the LORD.  He is in control.  He is bigger than the frustration, circumstance, and hardship.  No matter the size, the LORD is Sovereign, and he has allowed it in our lives in order that we would know that He is the LORD.

• What situation in your life is there currently, that you need to know that HE is the LORD?
• How does this help you not to stop moving with God?

Dig Deeper,

PC

Hey friends,

God wants to use us as he is writing a story for humanity.  He has a specific part for each of us to play.  It’s his story, not ours, and he is the main character, not us.  (We get this backwards too many times, at least I do.)  The story is all about God’s rescue mission – humanity needs rescue, and God is the rescuer!  It’s a rescue mission of grace and unconditional and undeserved love from God.  We have let God down and not lived by his standards; yet he wants to rescue us?  Wow.

In Exodus we get a glimpse of God writing this rescue story and inviting Moses to participate in it.  There’s a problem though.  Moses had baggage, and he was weak. Can God use a man who has baggage and weakness?  Can God use us with our baggage and weakness in his rescue mission?

Ever have certain times in your life where it appears your baggage to weigh you down? Almost like a season enters your world in which you can’t escape the demons in your closet?  And you long to drop the baggage and be set free from the pressures and memories that are painfully hurting your heart?

What about weakness?  Ever feel like you are so weak and you are so small and insignificant that you can’t accomplish what your heart longs to accomplish or what you feel led to pursue from God’s heart?

If you are like me and you feel this way, consider life of Moses with me.  This was a man who had baggage.  Check out Exodus 2:11-12.  “One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people.  He looks this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand.” What baggage did Moses bring to the table as God wanted to use him?  Can we say a murderer in the simplest form of the word?

Also, check out Exodus 3:11-12 to see the weakness of Moses.  “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.  But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?’ ” How did Moses consider his stature and strength in light of this invitation to participate in God’s plans?  Can we say weak in the simplest form of the word?

Moses had a crisis of faith upon being invited by God to join Him in his rescue mission.  How could he overcome his baggage and weakness?  How could he shift from crisis of faith to confidence in the Father?

God answers his fears with this statement:  “I will be with you…” (Exodus 3:12) God is a God of grace and forgives the most heinous of sins for the repentant of heart.  God is a God of strength, providing great strength and confidence to those who admit they need God.  God rigged this mission for Moses in the fact that he couldn’t do it in his own strength.  He had to be and admit his weakness in order to carry on wiht God’s purposes.

And so do we.  Are you being weak today?  Do you need God today?  Go on and be weak and be proud of it.  Don’t let your baggage weigh you down either.  Rather, confess your sins and move forward in the grace of our great God as Christ has forgiven our sins by offering up his life.  Be weak.  Let go of baggage.  Let God be in control.

Dig Deeper.

PC.

Hey RiverStone and Friends!  What a challenge God issues to us in being content in any and every circumstance from Philippians 3:10-12.  Wow!  We visited this truth on Sunday, and unpacked it a bit in detail to see how Paul can have indestructible joy in being content, whether in need or want, well fed or hungry…If you missed the message, visit http://www.riverstonechurch.org/media-2/messages and look for Joy in Contentment.  You can also listen via iTunes as well.

What would you say is your tendency, to be content or discontent.  I’d say for me, it’s discontentment.  I’m always looking to improve something, make it better, move it faster, make it more efficient, etc.  That’s just my nature.  So when it comes to contentment, it’s a real struggle for me.

But the challenge for us is to be content in Christ in all circumstances of life.  In plenty.  In want.  In struggle.  In celebration.

I asked the question on Sunday, “Is my being content based on God’s Timing or the good times?” This is a great beginning of the fight to be content in Christ.  What’s going on in your life right now that has you waiting upon God’s Timing?  Are you content in His timing?  Or is your joy and contentment based on the times when life is all good?  That’s hard stuff.  The truth is that God leads us to “wait” upon his timing to teach us and train us to be glad in GOD not glad in anything else.

Look at the following passages:  Exodus 7-12.  This is the story of God bringing the plagues on Egypt – and this is some crazy stuff.  Plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, Locusts, Darkness and more.  Here’s the questions:

• Why didn’t God move immediately and set free the people of Israel from Egyptian slavery?  He could have, right?  Moses was obedient and faithful, right?
• What did the people of Israel learn during these plagues?
• If you were Moses, how would you have felt as Pharoah says “NO” each time, and a new plague come?  How would you have handled waiting on God?

This is one of my favorite groups of Scriptures in the entire Bible – maybe because I’ve lived through some of this waiting stuff.  Here’s why I love it.  I believe God was teaching his people during these plagues to be content, to have joy, to have faith, and to persevere with confidence in God’s timing.  God is/was powerful enough to move immediately to free the Isrealites from their pain, and he’s powerful enough to take whatever circumstance we go through out of our lives as well.  But there are times when he chooses to keep it there for some Divine Design.  Keep your chin up in these times.  He’s up to something.  He’s molding our hearts to be content – IN HIM, not in our circumstance.  He is our contentment.  Having him is what he wants us to treasure, not having stuff, having peace, having perfection, having a struggle-less life.  Having him is what he wants us to treasure!

I love you…I’m praying for us all to be content in all circumstances of life – because he’s our treasure!