Tag Archives: Exodus

Exodus 6: We Are the Messenger, Not the Message

But the Lord replied to Moses, “Now you will see what I will do to Pharaoh: because of a strong hand he will let them go, and because of a strong hand he will drive them from his land.”

God’s first words in this chapter are in response to Moses’ last words in the previous chapter – “…why have You brought trouble upon this people… You have not rescued Your people at all.”

God sent Moses to Pharaoh with a message, and the message didn’t work. In fact, it made things worse. At least that’s what it looked like from Moses’ vantage point, and it caused him to despair. Moses didn’t know that his assignment was never intended to be the solution, it was only meant to prepare the way. Moses was not the message. In other words, it was never going to be Moses who changed the heart of the king and freed God’s people.

I wonder if someone needed to hear that today. What you perceive as failure on your part, may simply be a misunderstanding of the mission.

Moses brought the message of God to Pharoah, but what was going to move the ruler was the power of God. And yet… I still don’t think that’s the full perspective of this chapter, and here’s why. God could have simply brought a deadly plague on every Egyptian, leaving the Israelites free to walk away from their bondage. He could have, with a thought, wiped out their oppressors, if their freedom was the primary goal. But it wasn’t, and we know that because of the next message God gave Moses to take, not to Pharaoh, but to the Hebrew slaves.

Therefore tell the Israelites: I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians and rescue you from slavery to them. I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and great acts of judgment. I will take you as My people, and I will be your God. You will know that I am the Lord your God, who brought you out from the forced labor of the Egyptians.” 

You will know that I am the Lord your God.

I will dare to say that Moses being sent to Pharoah wasn’t about Moses, or even about the oppressed or the oppressor. It was about God being known.

There would be no misunderstanding as to how the Hebrews were rescued from their slavery. No way to chalk it up to good fortune or coincidence, and certainly no way they could ever think that they freed themselves. Everyone involved in this story would know one indisputable fact – God had done this. Not a god, but the God.

You and I, as Christ followers, are in the service of our God, but let us never mistake our assignment to be the solution. Sometimes we will deliver the message, maybe even raise our staff over the water, but it will always be the power of God that parts the sea, turns a heart, heals a disease, or sets someone free – so that they will know that He is the Lord. May we never allow our limited perspective to make any of this about us.

May we (the Church) stop endeavoring to be known. Stop making it about our great preaching, great worship, and great ministries. The number of seats filled and the number of people following us is meaningless as long as it remains about us.

I pray the Church shifts her gaze, and the quest of her heart becomes to simply make Him known.

Because we are the messenger, not the message.

I pray that my gaze shifts off of me – my failures and successes, my not enough or too much, my abilities or inabilities, my have or have not, my following or the lack thereof.

I pray that the quest of my heart becomes to make Him known, even if (when) it means that I am unknown.

Because I am the messenger, not the message.

Exodus 5: Their Story Is My Story

I can see it so much clearer from here than from where I was when I first started inching my way toward God. Life got harder. The rope I was holding onto started slipping through my hand a little faster. Hope got smaller and despair got bigger. And from here, 35 years down the road, I can see that it was what both God and the enemy wanted, but for different reasons. I think the enemy saw God coming and wasn’t about to let me go without a fight. And I think God wanted me to come to the end of myself, to see that I just couldn’t keep living my life on my terms, because my terms were destroying me.

When God began His movement toward delivering the Israelites from their oppression, life got much harder for them. The demand given to Pharaoh to let them go into the wilderness so they could worship God served only to rouse his anger.

That day Pharaoh commanded the overseers of the people as well as their foremen,  “Don’t continue to supply the people with straw for making bricks, as before. They must go and gather straw for themselves. But require the same quota of bricks from them as they were making before; do not reduce it. For they are slackers—that is why they are crying out, ‘Let us go and sacrifice to our God.’ Make the work harder for the people so that they keep working and pay no attention to lies.” (Exodus 5:6-9)

And so it had begun. God was moving and the grip of oppression tightened. The only word I can think of to describe my very first reading of the book of Exodus is stunned. I was seeing my spiritual rescue story in the shadow of their physical rescue, and I think I fell in love with the Old Testament right there, as I wept.

Once Pharaoh made the work harder, the Israelites did what we all do. They blamed and complained. Who could expect any different from them? It’s part of our frailty, don’t you think? To want someone to be accountable for our suffering. To rage at something or someone for the pain we’re in.

They didn’t know that their Deliverer was coming for them. They didn’t know that He was about to do things they could not have imagined. God was doing a glorious thing, but it couldn’t be seen from this side of the veil, from this side of hard things that just got harder.

So Moses went back to the Lord and asked, “Lord, why have you caused trouble for this people? And why did you ever send me? Ever since I went in to Pharaoh to speak in your name he has caused trouble for this people, and you haven’t rescued your people at all.” (Exodus 5:22-23)

Right here is a good place to release a good word to someone who needs to hear it –

You can’t measure God’s faithfulness by whether or not He moves at the pace you set for Him to move.

When we trust God, our reality is this: If He said He will do it, He will do it.

What I have said, that I will bring about;
    what I have planned, that I will do. (Isaiah 46:11)

He does not change. He is still the faithful God who rescues us from an enemy who does not want to let us go.

Exodus 4: He’s Got Your Back

I try to imagine the conversation between God and Moses.

God: Ok, I want you to go to Pharoah and tell him that I said to let his entire workforce go, so that they can come out here to the desert and worship Me.

Moses: *blink*

God:

Moses: I mean. They’re not gonna believe me. Or even listen to me. Right? I mean, like, I think maybe this might not be … *trails off, just short of telling God He’s got a messed up plan.*

God: *sigh* Throw down your staff…

That’s how I imagine it, but odds are it didn’t go down quite like that.

“Then Moses answered, “But behold, they will not believe me or listen to my voice, for they will say, ‘The Lord did not appear to you.’” The Lord said to him, “What is that in your hand?” He said, “A staff.”  And he said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent, and Moses ran from it. But the Lord said to Moses, “Put out your hand and catch it by the tail”—so he put out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand— “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.” (Exodus 4:1-5)

When God tells us to speak something, He will back up our words with His power.

The Lord said to Moses, “… Lift up your staff, and stretch out your hand over the sea and divide it…

… Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and the Lord drove the sea back by a strong east wind all night and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided. (Exodus 14:16, 21)

When God tells us to do something, He will back up our actions with His power.

Joshua and his men circled Jericho the way God told them to, and it fell.

Elijah confronted the prophets of Baal at the word of the Lord, and fire fell on a water soaked altar.

Ezekiel, in obedience to God’s command, prophesied to an army of bones, and that army came to life.

Servants filled the water jars at Jesus’ command, and the water became wine.

 “I [Paul] came to you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not be based on human wisdom but on God’s power.” (1 Corinthians 2:3-5)

Our obedience to God will result in the presence of the power of God.

Has He called you to speak something? Do something? Preach, teach, prophesy something? Lay something down, take something up, let go, grab hold, walk away from, return to? Let me ask it this way… what has God been asking of you?

“Do whatever He tells you,” His mother told the servants. (John 2:5)

Through the life of Moses, and beyond, we find this principle at work –

We bring the obedience, He brings the power.

But soon, we will discover another principle from Moses and the Israelites –

When we bring disobedience, He still brings the power. But the results are a lot different! Stayed tuned.

Exodus 3: Exodus Easter

Sometimes I read a chapter of scripture and nothing really catches my eye. Other times I find something that jumps off the page and into my heart. But this chapter filled my heart with beautiful things to ponder.

Then He said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”  

Exodus 3:5

This was not the first time God encountered Moses’ life, but it was the first time that Moses encountered God. We know that from the beginning God had been actively setting Moses up for what is about to come. And then one day God drew Moses to His presence through a burning bush. What had been an ordinary bush was now holy ground because it was occupied by a holy God.

God is holy, so what He inhabits with His presence becomes holy. If you want to know if God inhabits a place (or a life), look for holiness in that place.

Then the Lord said, “I have surely seen the affliction of My people who are in Egypt and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters. I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey…“

Exodus 3:7

He saw. He heard. He knew. And He came. This can go one of two ways in our lives. In our suffering, we can know that He sees it, hears our cries, and knows our pain, and it can provide us with comfort, and compel us to seek His nearness. Or, it can make us blame Him for our suffering, be bitter toward Him, and compel us to push away from Him.

God is intimately aware of our suffering. What we do with that knowledge is a testing ground for our heart.

 But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless compelled by a mighty hand. So I will stretch out my hand and strike Egypt…

Exodus 3:19-20

A mighty hand was needed, and a mighty hand is what Pharoah received. In the same way, Satan was never going to let go of his hold on this world unless a mighty hand compelled him.

Yesterday, we observed the Friday when God stretched forth His hand(s) and struck the kingdom of darkness.

And tomorrow we will celebrate the resurrection that brought us out of our death and into His life.

Because He saw. He heard. He knew. And He came.

don’t fit in, stand out

“Then Moses said to Him, ‘If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.   How will anyone know that You are pleased with me and with Your people unless You go with us? What else will distinguish me and Your people from all the other people on the face of the earth?'”  Exodus 33:15-16 

I remember when I was a little girl, one of the most important things to me was that I “fit in” with everyone else.  I tried hard, but could never quite get there.  It took many, many years to discover that I was not the strange misfit I thought I was, but was instead uniquely made by God (just like everyone else). And yet,  in some deep place in me there remained the desire to fit in.  And if I couldn’t fit in, then at least don’t make me stand out. 

What compels young girls today to abuse their bodies in an attempt to achieve a ridiculously thin look? Or a woman to get multiple surgeries and injections in her frantic effort to defy the aging process? The need to fit in with the world’s view of beauty.

What is underneath the corporate ladder climbing that makes a  man a stranger to his family? The need to fit in with the world’s view of success.

What causes a woman to hide the fact that, despite all outward appearances, her marriage, her family, her world, is quietly falling apart?  The need to fit in with the world’s view of  womanhood.

Moses understood that fitting in with the people around them was far from God’s heart for His people.

“I will make a distinction between My people and your people.”  Exodus 8:23

“Then you will know that the LORD makes a distinction between Egypt and Israel.”  Exodus 11:7

“And you will again see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.”  Malachi 3:17-18

Beloved, God’s heart is to make a distinction between you and those who do not know Him, and to have you live by a different set of definitions.

Redefined beauty…

“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.”  Psalm 139:14

“Your beauty should not come from outward adornment…Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.”  1Peter 3:2-4

A redefined path to success…

“All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the LORD. Commit to the LORD whatever you do, and your plans will succeed” Proverbs 16:2-3

A redefined womanhood…

“A wife of noble character who can find?
   She is worth far more than rubies.”  Proverbs 31:10

“Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting;
   but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.” Proverbs 31:30

Throughout His word, we are called to be different. In the New Testament, God’s people grieve, pray, fast and war differently. We don’t worry about what others worry over, and we don’t chase what they chase. His heart remains consistently insistent that His people be distinguished from all other people.

So stand up, stand out and refuse to fit in. Live a life of distinction. 

irreversible power

The book of Exodus has God’s power, His terrible, beautiful power, on display. But there is also another power on display.

Aaron threw down his staff and it became a snake.  “Pharaoh then summoned wise men and sorcerers, and the Egyptian magicians also did the same things by their secret arts: Each one threw down his staff and it became a snake.” (Exodus 7:11-12)

God turned the water of the Nile into blood. “But the Egyptian magicians did the same things by their secret arts…” (7:22)

God brought frogs to cover the land. “But the magicians did the same things by their secret arts; they also made frogs come up on the land of Egypt.”  (8:7)

God brought gnats. And that’s where their power found its limit. “But when the magicians tried to produce gnats by their secret arts, they could not.” (8:18)

From these displays of power, I am impressed with two thoughts.

~ The power of the enemy has a limitation, but God’s power goes on, limitless. I love what God said to Pharaoh, after the plagues of blood, frogs, gnats, flies, death to livestock, and boils. “let My people go, so that they may worship me, or this time I will send the full force of my plagues against you…” (9:13-14)

By the time the enemy’s power had reached it’s limit, God’s was just getting started!

~ The enemy can mimic God’s power, but he cannot counter His power. Notice that Pharoah’s magicians only did what God had already done…turned a staff into a snake, turned water into blood, brought frogs to cover the land. What they did not do was turn Aaron’s staff back into a staff, turn the blood back to water, or make the frogs go back where they came from.

They had no power to undo what God had done.  God affirms this truth in Isaiah.

“No one can deliver out of my hand. 
   When I act, who can reverse it?” Isaiah 43:13

And again…

“My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of My hand.” (John 10:27)

Today, I am struck once again by the beautiful, limitless, irreversible power of the God to whom I belong.