“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.”
~ Exodus 3:8
Hi James and Ellen,
What is your excuse for not wanting to do something? What do you tell your teacher when your teacher asks you to do something? What do you tell your dad and/or ma when your dad and/or ma asks you to do something? What do you tell God when God asks you to do something? When your teacher, your dad and/or ma and/or God asks you to do something, do you pull a Moses by telling your teacher or your dad and/or ma and/or God ‘who do you think I am that you would ask me to do something’? When your teacher, your dad and/or ma and/or God asks you to do something, do you pull a Moses by telling your teacher or your dad and/or ma and/or God ‘who are you that you would ask me to do something’? Pulling a Moses by using an excuse to question or to push back about doing something that you do not want to do is a normal reaction. Your grandpaa does not like to be asked to do something without him first being given the opportunity to think about what it is that he is being asked to do. When God told Moses that He would be the guy to lead His specially chosen people group of guys and gals – guys and gals who were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, out of the land of Egypt – where they had been living, multiplying and suffering for about 400 years under Egyptian serfdom, Moses began to use excuses to question or to push back at God as to why he was not the right guy to do what God was telling him that he was going to do. Moses was by now an 80 year old octogenarian. Moses had been minding his own business. Moses had been shepherding sheep for Jethro – who was his father-in-law, in a desert near Mount Horeb, when he saw a bush that appeared to be on fire. When Moses went to check on why the bush was not burning up even though the bush was continuing to appear to be burning and as he neared the burning bush, Moses heard a voice calling out his name – telling him that he needed to take off his sandals because he was standing on holy ground. Because the presence of God was in the bush that appeared to be burning, Moses ended up standing on holy ground. When Moses realized that the voice that had spoken his name was God’s voice and that God was talking to him, Moses’ immediate reaction – because he was afraid of God, was to hide his face from the presence of God. The lonesome, humdrum, sheepherding life that Moses had been living out in a barren, dry, hot desert was changed in an instant by the voice of God speaking to him from a burning bush apparition.
Are you presently living a secluded, couch potato kind of life in an empty, mini world of self-pity, self-conceit and self-indulgence? Moses’ life started out well. Moses grew up in the home of an Egyptian Pharaoh. Moses – for the first of 40 years of his life, enjoyed all the amenities – such as money, education and class status, that came with living with an Egyptian Pharaoh family in whatever an Egyptian Pharaoh’s family lived in. When Moses rashly took a human life by killing an abusive Egyptian slave driver – a guy who probably deserved to die but . . ., Moses would end up having to do for the next 40 years serious desert time. As Moses was recording what is now Exodus 3, what flashbacks do you think that Moses had of standing all alone – in nowhere country, listening intensely and talking defensively with a bush – the bush being the presence of God, that appeared to be burning but which was not being consumed by the apparent fire? Do you think that Moses was feeling any regrets for thinking that he had the right to question God’s judgment for picking him to do something that he really did not think that he was able to do? What will happen to you if you question a teacher’s judgment if he or she asks you to do something that you really do not think that you are able to do? What will happen to you if you question the judgement of your dad and/or ma if your dad and/or ma asks you to do something that you really do not think that you are able to do? What will happen to you if you question God’s judgment when God asks you to do something that you really do not think that you are able do? You will still probably do the best that you can do with what your teacher asks you to do. You will still probably do the best that you can do with what your dad and/or ma asks you to do. Your grandpaa believes that you will feel a sense of peace and hope when you do what God is asking you already to do – such as simple talking with Him, such as listening for His voice as He speaks to you through the words that He – as God the Spirit, breathed on different guys to scribe in the books and letters that make up the Biblical canon and such as being faithful, obedient servant/shepherds who do whatever for His kingdom’s sake.
Your teacher will possibly give you a good deportment grade if you do not question his or her judgment. Your dad and/or ma will possibly give you extra privileges if you do not question his, her or their judgment. God promises to give you eternal wellbeing and temporal wealth if you do not question His judgment. When the time arrived for it to take place, God told Moses – in verse 8, that his people group of guys and gals – who were the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, “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.” God also told Moses that when His specially chosen guys, gals and kids – the Israelite people group guys, gals and kids, are about to leave the land of Egypt that Egyptian gals will give to his Israelite people group gals all the gold, silver and clothes that they can find. What excuses have you been using to not do or to push back at what God is asking you to do for Him? What is God asking you right now to do?
Exodus 3 (819)