January 27
Ex 4:1-5:21 | PS 22:19-31 | Prov 5:15-21 | Matt 18:1-20
There are those who seem to have been gifted with so much: they coast through school easily, they have no problems making friends, perhaps they are good looking, they attain a good job and advance easily, they are a good spouse and parent, they even lead a fairly moral life. Everyone must understand that though these people are deemed “nice”, that some of these qualities may partially reflect their upbringing, their genetics, etc., each and every gift mentioned is gifted by God. People often forget that God gave them those parents and those genes. The sad thing is many “nice” people don’t realize this and view their status as due to their hard work, personal ambition, and general likability. They often don’t seek God, failing to see the need for Him. Those who fall in the other camp: many struggles, difficulties with interpersonal relationships, perhaps struggling with one addiction or another, often realize their lives are not what they want, which leads them to seek outside themselves for hope. Our hope rests in the Person of Jesus Christ. He alone holds the keys to our eternal destination. Only His payment on the cross will suffice to cover our sins and deem us righteous before our perfect Father. Repentance is necessary, which means our changing our minds from what we think to what God says. Unless we can humbly see ourselves rightly before our perfect God and how we all for short: nice or not, basically moral or not, we will miss heaven due to our sins whether seemingly egregious or not viewed that bad by polite society.
We read in Exodus 4:10-12, “But Moses pleaded with the Lord, “O Lord, I’m not very good with words. I never have been, and I’m not now, even though you have spoken to me. I get tongue-tied, and my words get tangled.” Then the Lord asked Moses, “Who makes a person’s mouth? Who decides whether people speak or do not speak, hear or do not hear, see or do not see? Is it not I, the Lord? Now go! I will be with you as you speak, and I will instruct you in what to say.”” God was sending Moses to be His vessel to free the Israelites from the power of Egypt. Moses made one excuse after another. God told Moses, I will give you the words, the power, etc. We have been offered similar words of comfort as Moses, as we read in Luke 12:11-12, “And when you are brought to trial in the synagogues and before rulers and authorities, don’t worry about how to defend yourself or what to say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you at that time what needs to be said.”
Our mistake is over inflating who we are and minimizing who God is. We are told by Jesus in Matthew 18:3, “Then he said, “I tell you the truth, unless you turn from your sins and become like little children, you will never get into the Kingdom of Heaven.” We need to see ourselves rightly, the little children we need to be. Unless we see things this way, we are apt to take our eyes off of Him and overemphasize men as we see the Israelites do when they first meet Moses, as seen in Exodus 4:31, “Then the people of Israel were convinced that the Lord had sent Moses and Aaron. When they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshiped.” That is the proper response as eyes went off the power of Egypt and rested on the power of God. We read alternatively in 5:21, after things seemed to be getting worse after Moses challenged Pharoah, “The foremen said to them, “May the Lord judge and punish you for making us stink before Pharaoh and his officials. You have put a sword into their hands, an excuse to kill us!”” Circumstances may be difficult but our God is larger than our circumstances. And we must all remember, none of us are good enough on our own to earn heaven. Everything we have is a gift from God. All praise to the Lord!!
Messages from Pastor Lloyd Pulley: