Year 3 Day 50

Year 3 Day 50


Pray (ACts)


Read - Exodus 4:18


Message - Alan Burke


“First posted Year 1 Day 328 - 15 Feb 21” 


I am away on Post Ordination Training this week so my devotions are the last of some of the most liked of ‘Year One’. 


Think of how Moses was unwilling to do as God had commanded him, how four times God had told Moses to go, (3:10,16,18 4:12), then finally Moses tells God that he simply didn’t want to go. That’s what it came down to, God was saying go and Moses was saying no, but Moses did go.


What though would be the first thing that you would do if you had been offered a job that meant you would have to move to somewhere far away? Go on to property pal? Purple bricks? Maybe tell the exciting news to those who you know and love? Here Moses does something that today would almost be unthinkable for an eighty year old to do, he asks for permission to go. 


Of course, Moses could have simply went, but he wanted his father in laws blessing, after all he was living under his roof, he was under his care, he had married his daughter and was going to take her and the grandchildren away with him. This eighty year old Moses goes to his father in law and the way he puts his request effectively is asking for permission for what could be described as an extended holiday to go to Egypt to see how his people were doing. And to this request Jethro tells Moses, “Go, and I wish you well”.


Why are we told this, what does it matter, it almost seems unnecessary. Yet it is hear for a purpose, it is the word of God and it helps us just like all of this section from v18-26 to understand how Moses responded to the call of God, and how he still has much to learn as a servant of God. 


So what do we learn here? Well it seems at stage one of Moses journey, as he was about to depart, he wasn’t sure himself or that God would do what he had promised he would do. Added to that how he was already filled with a sense of his own inadequacy, he probably worried about what Jethro would think if he told him the truth of why he was going. This Moses was a work in progress. 


How many times have you been filled with your own sense of inadequacy when it comes to serving God? Or how many times have you worried about what others will think of you if you told them the truth of how God has called you to himself through Christ Jesus? How many times have you dodged it at home, the workplace, at times living a double life, maybe a wee bit embarrassed at it all, trying to save face? 


There are all times in the past that we all have. But you, just as I, just as Moses was here, are a work in progress. Moses lacked the courage to tell Jethro why he was going but he went nonetheless. Through faith Moses went, he still had a long way to go just as you and I, we are God’s workmanship, but being a work in progress is not an excuse to be compromised though.


One other thing the eighty year old Moses went to his father in law to ask for his blessing. We could all learn a lesson if we still have parents, in laws, because they have years of wisdom that we don’t have, they will want the best for us, whereas today its much more common for children to go to their parents to affirm choices they have made no matter how disastrous they will be and parents are expected to affirm it. As children we are to still honour our father and mother even in 2021 no matter what age even in your eighties, and for those of you who are parents that also means you may need to challenging your rebellious sixty year old. (Ex 20:12, Eph 6:2) 


Pray (acTS)


Sing


WSC
Q51 What is forbidden in the second commandment?
The second commandment forbiddeth the worshipping of God by images, (Deut. 4:15–19, Exod. 32:5,8) or any other way not appointed in his Word. (Deut. 12:31–32)