Tag Archives: moses

LISTEN THEN DO

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LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, November 27, 2024

The time has come for the Israelites to enter the Promised Land, and that means it is time for Moses to say goodbye. His farewell address to the nation is recorded for us in the book of Deuteronomy. It is a personal challenge to obedience and faithfulness.

In the first 3 chapters of Deuteronomy, Moses gives the people a historical review of their journey from Egypt. When we get to chapter 4, Moses is ready to start giving the people their instructions for successful and victorious living in their new land. His first statement is most significant – “Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the LORD, the God of your fathers, is giving you.”

“Follow them!” Simple words yet so deep in significance. The Hebrew word used here means “to do.” Moses is telling the people that if they want to live they need to do what God says. Then he defines for them what real living is –

1.      To be wise and understanding

2.      To be in intimate relationship with God so He hears our prayers and answers them

3.      To model righteousness

Take a moment and reflect on those three things in your own life and see if you are really living. Are you considered wise and understanding by the people with whom you relate every day? Do they sense an extraordinary ability in you to understand the situations of life and discern the will of God in them? Do people around you come to you when they are in difficult situations because they know you have a direct connection with God in prayer and can touch and understand His heart? Do they see in you a consistency that reflects the holy integrity of God’s law?

All these questions can and should be able to be answered in the affirmative if we are following the laws of God. Unfortunately, many of us are only good listeners, but not good laborers. We hear what God says, but we fail to do it. James, the half-brother of Jesus Christ, in his New Testament book, wrote this, “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.” If we are to be people of great faith who really know how to live, then we must be doers of the Word of God. Faith is of no value without the actions that prove it. Moses knew this was the key for the Israelites to truly possess life in the new land.

When we claim to have eternal life, but the life we are living so resembles the life of a spiritually dead person, there is something drastically wrong. Moses uses the term “the Lord Your God” over 300 times in his farewell address. He knew that to live victoriously we must get up close and personal with God. We must be intimately in love with God, and true love is defined by obedience. Every aspect of our lives is to be governed and guided by God. God is calling us to a deeper and more meaningful life, and that life begins with obedience to His Word. Won’t you begin that life today?

Pastor John

ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

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LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, November 7, 2024

 It is time for the Israelites to take their next step of faith and enter the Promised Land. But there’s another lesson of faith they must learn. There is a constant conflict between faith and human nature. Moses had learned some great lessons about trusting and obeying God. His faith was strong, but it was not yet a complete faith in God’s Word. We know from reading the rest of the story in Numbers 14 that he believed that God would take them into the Promised Land, but his human nature got in the way of taking a true faith-based step of obedience in this case. The sending of the spies was not the problem: it was the instructions to the spies that were wrong.

Numbers 13:1-2, 17-20  The LORD said to Moses, “Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” When Moses sent them to explore Canaan, he said, “Go up through the Negev and on into the hill country. See what the land is like and whether the people who live there are strong or weak, few or many. What kind of land do they live in? Is it good or bad? What kind of towns do they live in? Are they unwalled or fortified? How is the soil? Is it fertile or poor? Are there trees on it or not? Do your best to bring back some of the fruit of the land.”

God had promised that He was giving this land to the Israelites. His instructions to Moses were specific and simple – send some men to explore the land. At this point Moses had two options for the purpose of this mission. First, it could have been a mission of military strategy to find out the best possible route to go in and conquer the land. That would have been the faith-based purpose. It would have been the positive-minded purpose. The spies could have been sent with a conqueror’s mentality based on their faith in the promise of God.

But that’s not how they were sent. Moses chose the second option that was available to him. It is the option of human nature and the one we most often choose when confronted with a step of faith. Moses chose to send in the spies with a series of irrelevant questions to be answered that could only be an indication of his own uncertainty. If Moses truly believed that God would give them the land, then what is the relevance of what kind of land it was, or how productive the land was, or how big and strong the people were, or how fortified were their cities? Why did Moses need answers to these questions?

I think it’s for the same reason we ask questions when God gives us commands – we want to know more details to determine our willingness to obey. We want to know if obedience will put us at risk in any way. We want to see some of the fruit of obedience before we choose to obey. When God says, “Go through that door,” we want to open the door just a crack and look inside before we say, “I’ll go.”

Moses laid the groundwork for failure by giving the spies the wrong instructions. As we said before, in the rest of the story Moses is commended along with Aaron, Caleb, and Joshua for being the ones who wanted to obey, but Moses still had something to learn about how to obey. Obedience is not conditional on the outcome, benefits, or risk. Obedience is the product of a mature faith that totally and unconditionally trusts the word of God. When we add our human reasoning to God’s direction we are setting the stage for failure. 

Let’s learn from this and apply it to the current situations and directions that God is giving us. Stand strong in faith on the promises of God, and let’s get going!

Pastor John

FAITH IS PATIENT

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LifeLink Devotions for Friday, October 18, 2024

Yesterday we left Moses in Exodus 19 telling the people of Israel about their incredible deliverance from Egypt and that it was God who bore them up on eagles’ wings and carried them to Himself. When they heard this, the people made a promise to Moses that they would obey everything God would tell them to do. So Moses went up on the mountain to find out the details of how God wanted the people to live in relationship with Him. The people all witnessed the awesome presence of God on the mountain and watched as Moses entered it. But would they persist in their faith while he was gone?

Thirteen chapters later in the book of Exodus we find our answer.

Exodus 32:1-4  “When the people saw that Moses was so long in coming down from the mountain, they gathered around Aaron and said, “Come, make us gods who will go before us. As for this fellow Moses who brought us up out of Egypt, we don’t know what has happened to him.” Aaron answered them, “Take off the gold earrings that your wives, your sons and your daughters are wearing, and bring them to me.”  So all the people took off their earrings and brought them to Aaron. He took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf, fashioning it with a tool. Then they said, “These are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.”

Moses has been gone for forty days, and during that time the glory of God was visible on the mountain to all the people. But the thrill and excitement of the initial event had worn off. The people were tired of sitting still, and they needed tangible results to their faith. Because they weren’t moving forward and were seeing no supernatural activity of personal benefit, they decided to look elsewhere for leadership. Imagine that – in full view of God’s glorious presence that appeared to the people like a consuming fire on top of the mountain, they declared their distrust in the ability of God to lead them and instead declared that an inanimate image of a calf cast out of gold was their real God. Apis, the Egyptian bull-god, had kept them safe in Egypt, and maybe now this god would guide them to safety once again.

Why is it that we so quickly return to our sinful bondages? I see from the example of the Israelites a couple of reasons. Here’s the first one.

  1. Their faith was still in the activity of God and not in the nature of God. They could see the evidence of His nature on the mountain, but because there was no activity they looked for another object of faith to generate action. This is a hard lesson for us all to learn. Even when the activity around us seems to be moving against us, God is still carrying us to Himself on the wings of eagles. Our circumstances do not determine the faithfulness of God. Our circumstances are there to show us the faithfulness of God if we will persist and be patient.

On Monday we will look at the other reason why we return to our fleshly bondages. For the rest of today and this weekend, spend some time processing this question. “Has my faith in God increased to a level that allows me to not seek options other than God when my present circumstances don’t work out the way I want them to?”

Pastor John

AVOIDING BURNOUT

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LifeLink Devotions for Wednesday, October 16, 2024

Yesterday we began looking at the advice the father-in-law of Moses gave him so he could become a better leader and avoid burnout. It starts with recognizing that we are only representatives of God to other people, not replacements for God.

Here are the next three principles taken from Exodus 18.

2.      Use every meeting with a person seeking God’s advice to teach them how to personally apply God’s law so they become more dependent upon God than upon you.  Moses was told, “Teach them the decrees and laws, and show them the way to live…” It is easy for us to enjoy the attention and ego stroking we get when people depend on us, but it is our privilege and duty to lead them into dependence upon God.

3.      Give the people a sense of purpose and responsibility. Jethro said, “And show them … the duties they are to perform.” Everyone needs to know they are needed and appreciated and that their life is accomplishing some purpose. One of the most important aspects of leadership is to encourage people to dream and then empower them to pursue the dream.

4.      Set up a workable system of accountability and authority. Here’s the instruction Moses received. ”But select capable men from all the people – men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate dishonest gain -and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, fifties and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you; the simple cases they can decide themselves.” Organize the people into small groups and delegate responsibility to qualified people to oversee the groups. This is a great model for the church today.

What was the guaranteed result of such leadership? Stress reduction and satisfied people. Here’s what Jethro predicted for Moses. ”You will be able to stand the strain, and all these people will go home satisfied.” As a pastor, that’s what I want. That’s what I have. I thank God daily for the qualified people around me who carry the load and for the servant-hearted people like you who have accepted the wisdom of Godly leadership. Maybe some of these principles will help you in the leadership issues you experience at your work or in your family.

Pastor John

FAITH OVERCOMES INSECURITIES

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LifeLink Devotions for Thursday, September 26, 2024

Exodus 4:10-12 

We tend to be insecure people. Some of us cover it with arrogance. Some cover it by striving for excellence. Others simply succumb to it and live timid lives. Moses tried the third option, making all kinds of excuses to God to remain in his obscure profession of tending sheep. But God had bigger plans for him, and He was helping Moses grow his faith to maturity so he could overcome his insecurities.

Moses tried to declare himself a nobody, to claim theological ignorance, to claim to have no authority, and now today he claims to be a poor public speaker.  We read about his excuse in Exodus four starting in verse 10.

Moses said to the LORD, “O 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.” The LORD said to him, “Who gave man his mouth? Who makes him deaf or mute? Who gives him sight or makes him blind? Is it not I, the LORD? Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

In other words, “I got no grammar and people are bored when I talk.”

I am overjoyed at how much I learn from people who claim to not be able to teach. I am blessed by the things people say when those same people claim they don’t know enough to be a blessing to others. I am amazed especially for myself at how I am ever able to say anything of value, but I have learned the lesson that Moses needed to learn – God not only gives us what we need to say but also teaches us how to say it so that it is understood. I think this happens in two ways, both of which are totally the work of God.

1.    God’s Spirit empowers our thoughts and our tongues and brings clarity of thought and speech.

2.    God’s Spirit prepares the heart of the hearer to be touched by what He says through us.

Moses needed to learn that when God calls someone to a specific task, He has already made provision for every detail of that task to be accomplished. Nothing is left to chance, and nothing is dependent upon our ability. All God asks for is our availability. He simply wants us to go – He will handle all the details.

There are many of you reading this today who have missed out on some tremendous blessings by not becoming teachers, preachers, or simply witnessing about Jesus to others. There have been many opportunities for you to do it, but you have always responded with a “No!” because you have based your decision on your own analysis of your abilities rather than on God’s ability to equip you. Isn’t it time to let God stretch you? Get out of your comfort zone. Stop asking all the “Who, why, where, and how” questions. The only valid question for us to ask is “What?” “What do you want me to do?” God is the Who. He knows the where and the why. He is responsible for the how. Mature faith only asks the what. So beginning today, when God tells us what He wants us to do, just go, and He will provide all of the rest. 

Pastor John