Resolutions: Study God’s Word

I’ve been convinced and convicted recently regarding my lack of discipline.  I don’t need (or want) to be legalistic, but honestly, my lack of discipline has not produced any good results.  Being more disciplined would produce better results – duh!  So how do I get to where I want to be from where I am as far as my productive habits (individual disciplines) go?  I think that a major part of what I was up against before was that I was trying to fit so many things into my schedule all at once, not in terms of having more things to do than hours in the day, but in terms of adding all of the new goals at once, like a traffic jam of to-do’s commuting into my schedule.  Having failed to fit everything in that way, I’ve backed off a bit.  I’m trying something different, adding just one thing at once, in order of priority.

Why in order of priority, instead of in order of ease or simplicity or fun?  Frankly, because if I admission into my schedule is based on how fun something is, I’ll only do the things that I want to do, and not the things I need to do.  If I add things based on how simple or easy they are to accomplish, I’ll only do the easy stuff, not the hard stuff.  Nothing worth doing comes easily, right?  So I am adding things in order of priority – and starting to sound like another annoying self help or motivational writer (seriously, they drive me up the wall).

So the way that I have decided to determine what disciplines get top priority is by who it serves, or who that discipline with bring me closer to.  So here’s the order that someone smarter than me came up with:  J.O.Y.; or Jesus, Others, You.  I believe that this idea is fitting with the Greatest Commandment: “… You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 22:38-39).  Loving God comes first, loving people comes second, and the command is finished with “as yourself” – a reminder to love and serve other people AT LEAST as much as you love and serve yourself.

Since loving God comes first, getting to know God is very important (might be kind of awkward to love someone I don’t know).  On top of that, as a Christian, no matter what I do, I am an ambassador of Jesus Christ, which means that I represent Him to the people around me.  In order to effectively represent Him, I need to know Him very well.  I’m going to keep this short and just simply say that the chief and primary way of getting to know God better is by reading the Bible.  Not everyone buys that, but I do, and here is not the time or place to defend why I believe that – or this won’t be a short post.

So my first resolution is to be a tireless student of God’s Word.  This is not a New Year’s Resolution, partly because it’s November.  I’ll have a few more resolutions by the time 1-1-2013 comes around, but I mean for this to last the rest of my life, not just for 2013.  I also mean for all of the resolutions I settle on to last beyond just 2013.  I know it’s a rabbit trail, but I hate New Year’s Resolutions because people don’t keep them.

Read the Bible for a Change, by Ray Lubeck

Wrapped up in that resolution to be a tireless student of God’s Word are (for me) four other long term commitments, three of which I’m borrowing from Ray Lubeck’s Read the Bible for a Change:

1. To read through the entire Bible at least once a year, but preferably twice.
2. To steward and hone the intellectual and spiritual gifts God has given me (especially the ones that enable me to study and better understand God’s Word).
3. To seek knowledge to enable better understanding of God’s Word.
4. To honestly examine my heart and attitude, and pray for God to create in me a clean heart so that His Word can be heard in my heart.

Here’s my thinking in those mini-resolutions:  they are quality assurance for the main resolution.  For most Christians, you don’t have to think very hard for personal experiences where people have misused the Bible and it caused harm to someone – perhaps even you personally.  This is one of many reasons critics of Christians say that we’re nothing but a bunch of self righteous hypocrites.

Anyway… Those are my thoughts on my first, and most important resolution.  One more time, even though I will probably have my little list of resolutions done and start incorporating them into my daily life by around the New Year, I don’t see these as New Year’s Resolutions for any other reason than their timing.  However I would still strongly encourage anyone reading this to give yourself an honest self examination of your own self discipline, and to consider what changes you might need to make.  If you are someone who is into New Year’s Resolutions, now is the time to start thinking about them.

Related articles

• A Confession… And a Resolution… (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• What is a Spiritual Discipline, Anyway? (buddyhowarddotme.wordpress.com)

A Confession… And a Resolution…

Rev. Jonathan Edwards, a leader of the Great Awakening, is still remembered for his extraordinary resolve. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have a confession:  I am an undisciplined, arrogant hack.

And I have a resolution:  To become more disciplined (in what, specifically, is still developing).

God’s timing never ceases to terrify, amuse, and amaze me.  When you live (only because He graciously helps you to do so) a life that honors God, he seems to teach you things you never wanted to know about yourself – at the most relevant, and simultaneously inconvenient times.

September and October of this year were really busy for me – at least in terms of milestones – looking back on them I am convicted of my daily laziness.

Skylar and I were in the panicked process of finishing some home improvement projects (adding a master suite, moving into the master suite, turning our old bedroom into a nursery) and at the same time doing paperwork to refinance our house – which meant a lot of pressure on me to finish the projects.  Add to that, I started a new job in September.  I was hired to do a particular task in which I had no prior training, experience, or education – I had no idea what I was doing, and I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels.  Then in October, my role changed (thank God) to something totally different, but still something where I have no prior experience – parent mentoring.  My daughter Keaton (my first) was born on October 20th; and we closed on our refinance on the 26th.

So, a lot of “major” milestones happened or were wrapped up in the last two months, so I must have been busy, right?  Sadly, no.  I didn’t read my Bible, I didn’t invest time in my relationship with my wife, I didn’t work out, I didn’t eat well (yes, that takes more time than just stuffing my face), and I didn’t write anything worth posting (mostly just complaints and ungracious political rants).  I took every excuse that I could for a “guys night” with my brothers, I watched TV probably two to three hours a night, and I got hooked into another stupid Facebook game.  Despite all that laziness, I’ve had quite the self righteous attitude that I’ve got it together and I’m doing what needs done.

Don’t take me wrong here.  I believe that B.U.S.Y. stand for Burdened Under Satan’s Yoke.  There’s the whole rabbit trail of Good vs. Great that we could get into, also known as the tyranny of the urgent, but I’ll let this post be a discussion of examples, instead of ideas. Yes, those house projects were a good (and necessary) thing to put my time and energy into, as was figuring out my new job(s), and doing the refinance paperwork.  To some degree, “resting” is also a good thing, but I took it too far.  In a number of ways, I’ve come to think that the Great things are the often boring or difficult commitments we’ve made that require an enormous amount of our time before they produce results – but when the results come, they’re worth the wait.

Why the sudden conviction that I’ve been lazy and undisciplined?  One thing is the contrast between myself and a Great Christian of History whom I’ve been reading about: Jonathan Edwards (The Unwavering Resolve of Jonathan Edward by Steven J. Lawson).  The man’s incredible discipline continues to inspire Christians today, 254 years after his death.  Another is a Leadership Training video from Mark Driscoll (An Observation after Breakfast with Chuck Smith) which essentially says that it can take years of faithfulness (discipline) to produce fruit.  And the final straw is that even though I knew I was behind in my bible reading, that today, November 10th), I finally did the reading that was on my calendar for September 29th, and I’ve been doing two readings a day for the last week to catch up.  I don’t know why it only struck me today that I was that far behind, but it did.

So, with that conviction, I confess:  I am undisciplined and prone to laziness; and I resolve: to hone discipline.  As I mentioned above, the timing of this is amusing.  God has brought me to where I am in life, in His sovereign timing.  I’ll probably finish that Edwards book just before Christmas (I’m reading it as a part of a men’s group, not just for leisure), but of course the New Year will be right on the heels of Christmas.  With this conviction, and this timing, it seems fitting to start thinking now of of my New Year’s resolution(s), which I have never done because I thought them fruitless, apparently due to my lack of discipline.  Not only is the New Year coming quickly, but in January I go back to school, to begin working on my Master’s degree.  So this conviction of needing discipline falls uncomfortably close to adding another iron to the proverbial fire.

More to come.

Showing up

Exodus 19:7-25 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible and Faithlife Study Bible.

After being reminded of God’s call and plan for Israel.  Moses is told that God is “coming… in a thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and may also believe you forever.”  Then God tells Moses to get the people ready for something big.  They have to go through their ceremonial washing of themselves and their clothes, abstain from sex, and build a fence at the base of the mountain.  No one is allowed to cross that fence without specific direction from God, on the penalty of death.  All that Israel knows is that God would be here in three days to do something significant, but they don’t know what exactly, all they know is “get ready.”  Centuries later, John the Baptist would be telling Israel to “get ready,” and in fact he would tell them to repent and be baptized (which would have been understood as a variation on ceremonial washing) (Matthew 3).  Here in Exodus 19, Moses is preparing Israel for the introduction of God’s Law, the first purpose of which is to point us to God by contrasting our depravity with His Holiness (See The Threefold Use of the Law from R.C. Sproul’s Essential Truths).  In Matthew 3, John would be preparing Israel for the introduction of God’s Kingdom through the coming of the Messiah, whose purpose was to restore the possibility fellowship between depraved humanity and Holy God.

After the preparation, God comes, just as promised.  God shows up at Mount Sinai in an undeniably miraculous way.  Jesus shows up to be our Savior from the penalty of our sin.  But presumably, some in Israel still doubted.  After God showed up at Sinai in fire, smoke, an earth quake, and thunder all at once; and after Moses had gone up the mountain to hear from God, he still had to go back down the mountain to remind the people that this was no joke, they really did have to stay off the Mountain.  Many in Jesus’ Israel denied and doubted that he was the Messiah, because even after God the Father showed up after Jesus’ baptism and confirmed Jesus as His Son, their anticipated picture of the Messiah wasn’t what they saw in front of them, so it just couldn’t be that the Kingdom of God was really at hand.

But it was.  After all that Israel had been through during their slavery and exodus, and after all the times that God had thoroughly proven his superiority and sovereignty over the other “gods” that were worshiped in Egypt and the neighboring pagan societies, God still showed up at Sinai in a seriously attention getting way.  After centuries of cyclic obedience and blessing, disobedience and punishment, and repentance, Jesus Christ showed up in Roman subjected Israel to bring in the Kingdom of God.

Related articles

• Called to God – Blessed for no Other Reason (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• A Family Reunion, and a Father-in-law’s Advice (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• Deliverance, Remembrance, Complacence (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)

Called to God – Blessed for no Other Reason

Exodus 19:3-6 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible and Faithlife Study Bible.

The Exodus narrative continues as Israel arrives at Mount Sinai, and God prepares the people to receive the Law (Exodus 20:1-23:19).  God’s sovereignty and power have already been demonstrated substantially to Israel by what He did to get them out of Egypt and bring them safely to Sinai – He even says, “I carried you on eagles’ wings.”  While He clearly doesn’t mean that they had traveled to Sinai in luxury, they traveled under his divine protection.  Now, after reminding them about the things they’d seen and how they’d arrived at Sinai, God says, “if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all people…”  Not unlike Jesus words in John 14:15 that if we love Him we will obey His commands.  Unfortunately, we are not unlike Israel will show themselves to be, because we also repeatedly show by our actions that we do not love God.  Fortunately for us, His love does not depend on our merit, but on His sovereign will.  Over and over again, God calls us back to Himself in a way that we cannot refuse, who can possibly refuse being released from slavery to sin?  Who can resist being kept safe in the hands of a completely sovereign God?

If we authentically love Jesus for what He has accomplished on our account, we will keep his commandments, we will obey God, and we will hear His voice (first and foremost through Scripture).  But we cannot authentically love as God loves, obey His commands, or hear His voice if we are not faithful students of Scripture.  Fortunately when Jesus said that if we love Him we’ll obey Him, He followed up with the promise of a Helper, the Holy Spirit (John 14:16).  Speaking of how the Holy Spirit helps us to understand Scripture, Joel Beeke says, “Knowledge is the soil in which the Holy Spirit sows the seed of understanding.”  Not only does the Holy Spirit help us to understand God’s expectations in the first place, but He helps us to meet them, because we are so much like Israel in that we have absolutely no power within ourselves to meet those expectations.

Israel’s covenantal obligation to God was to obey Him, and God’s promised reward for obedience was that Israel would remain under the Abrahamic blessing and become God’s “treasured possession” (v. 5).  Because we live in the Church age, that same covenantal blessings is extended to us, not because of any merit on our part, but because after God has called us to Himself, He gives us the Holy Spirit to enable us to obey Him and then receive His blessing.  We don’t receive that blessing because we deserve it, and we don’t receive it only for the benefit of the Holy Spirit’s help, but because God called us in the first place.  Going back to when God called Abraham (Genesis 12), God could have just as easily called Abraham’s father Terah, or his brother Haran.  But God, in His own sovereign pleasure, picked Abram to call out of his homeland, and to bless.  God picked Isaac, rather than Ishmael, to carry on his father’s blessing.  God picked Jacob, rather than Esau, to carry his grandfather’s blessing.  And on down the line until the nation of Israel is called to God out of Egypt, and out of all the rest of the world that God had made and that belongs to Him anyway.

We are blessed, as Israel was, for no other reason than that God called us out of the world, and out of our slavery to sin.  Why Israel and not the rest of the world?  Why the Church and not the rest of the world?  We don’t know.  But we do know that God’s thoughts and ways are not ours, and that His are higher than ours (Isaiah 55).

Related articles

• A Family Reunion, and a Father-in-law’s Advice (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• Deliverance, Remembrance, Complacence (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• My God can beat your god (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)

Related books

• Chosen by God (R.C. Sproul)

A Family Reunion, and a Father-in-law’s Advice

 

Gavel & Stryker (Photo credit: KeithBurtis)

Exodus 18 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible.

Apparently Moses had sent his wife and boys back home while he was dealing with Pharaoh and getting Israel out of Egypt.  Now that Israel is on its way to Sinai, and news has reached Jethro (Moses’ Father-in-law), Jethro brings Moses’ family back to him.  In Exodus 18:1-12 there is a lot going on, there’s a family reunion, a time of story telling and testimony that is centered on God (compare that to the non-God-centered story telling in Genesis 47:7-10) .  Since Jethro is a priest of Midian, and Midian is a descendant of Abraham (Genesis 25:2), it is possible that Jethro also followed Yahweh, although we don’t know this for certain.  So this story telling time might serve as either a strengthening of Jethro’s faith, or a conversion from a pagan faith to following Yahweh.

But the next day is also very interesting.  Because Moses was playing the role of a legal and spiritual mediator to an entire nation, and trying to do so within his human limitations.  He was mediating legally between individuals within the nation, and spiritually between the nation and God.  The two roles individually are far outside the realm of human capacity, but Moses was trying to do them both.  We’re not told if he was succeeding (even temporarily) or if he was failing in the performance of these roles, but from Jethro’s strong reaction, it’s pretty clear that Moses, like many modern jack-of-all-trades pastors, was on a path to burn-out.  He had to delegate his civil role while maintaining his spiritual role.  This is not much different from the apostles delegating the care and feeding of widows in Acts 6 to deacons so that they (the apostles) could focus on teaching the Gospel.

While pastors today still play an important role in making known to us the statutes and laws of God, as Moses did for Israel (Exodus 18:16), our only remaining spiritual mediator is now Jesus Christ himself (1 Timothy 2:5; Hebrews 9:15, 12:24).  We don’t have to wait in line in a spiritual court room.  We read the Bible to hear from God the Father regarding Jesus Christ, we pray to and in the name of Jesus Christ, and the answer (should we have the sensitivity to “hear” it, and the discernment to validate it with Scripture) comes from the Holy Spirit.

See Also:  Timothy Lovegrove on Exodus 18

Related articles

• We can’t get off the hook. (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)
• Deliverance, Remembrance, Complacence (thinkrhema.wordpress.com)

 

Deliverance, Remembrance, Complacence

Exodus 13-17 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible and Faithlife Study Bible.

There is a pattern in the lives of many Christians – including myself – to become complacent and to not recognize or remember the works and mercies of God in times when things are going well for us.  A consequence of this pattern is that when things start to go bad, we go running back to God with an intense sense of urgency and a need for him to act.  Sometimes we do this “running back” in a way that fails to recognize past deliverances.  In this section of Exodus we see the start of Israel’s wilderness wanderings and the start of this cycle of deliverance, remembrance, and complacence.

Immediately on the heels of the Passover and the Exodus, God, through Moses, directs a means of remembering his deliverance from the slavery of Egypt through the plagues (from which Israel was spared).  Israel is to have an annual weeklong party to commemorate the Exodus, and is to consecrate (or wash and set apart) their firstborn sons for religious service.  There is even a mechanism for passing this memory down through the generations.  As adult Israelites perform the rituals and sacrifices prescribed by the law, their curious children will ask “why?”  The parent is then to respond with the reason for their actions and a description of the events that the ritual commemorates.  In our own day, this would be Christmas, Easter, baptism, and communion; the Christian holidays and ordinances.

Christmas and Easter both happen once a year, to celebrate the birth, death, and victorious resurrection of Jesus Christ.  The ordinances are performed frequently and as-needed, and both point to Jesus’ death and resurrection.  We have our holidays, we celebrate the ordinances, all of which point us to the actions of Christ.  God has literally done miracles to deliver us.  Still we question God and whine and grumble and scream “why did you bring me here?” when we come under spiritual attack (like Pharaoh’s host pursuing Israel), or when we don’t see how God is meeting – or is going to meet – our needs in a given situation (like Israel at Marah and enroute to Sinai).

Because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, our deliverance is certain.  Because of his love, our sustenance (though not necessarily comfort or prosperity) is assured.  So why do we whine and grumble?  I think there is one reason.  Or, at least, there only one reason that I whine and grumble.  Pride.  Because I am young, healthy, strong, moderately intelligent, and a quick learner, I constantly struggle with pride, and I like to do things on my own without other people’s help.  Often, in my sinful nature, I try to face challenges that God has placed before me on my own.  But God doesn’t challenge me so that my own strength and merit and abilities can get credit for beating the challenge – or even so that my faith can get credit.  God challenges me (as he challenged Israel) so that he can be the hero, so that he can be the cavalry galloping in at the critical moment.  Does that mean that God is egotistical?  Yes and no.  Yes, because it is “egotistical” to be such a glory hog; but no, because HE IS GOD!  He makes the rules, not me.  He is perfect and sinless, so there is nothing wrong with drawing attention to that!  I am a depraved, prideful wretch (apart from his sovereign, saving, and sanctifying grace), and there is everything wrong with drawing attention to myself, because there is nothing worth copying, save only when I point others to God through Jesus Christ.

I suppose another reason for the whining and complaining might be forgetfulness, but I think that issue also ties back to pride.  We forget because during the holidays we allow ourselves to be less concerned with the purpose of the holidays (remembering Christ) and more concerned with the trappings of the holidays – be they gifts, decorations, family gatherings, social gatherings, candy – or focus on those things is out of our desire to satisfy ourselves and to impress others, which is pride.  We forget because we allow the ordinances to become routine, we participate out of social compliance or muscle memory, but our minds wander to what we’ll have for lunch or to what projects we’ll be working on that afternoon.  We forget because we relegate the thorough study of scripture to clergy and scholars, because we prefer our own goals and desires over God’s desire that we know him.  To many of us – including me at times – we pridefully prioritize working to pay the bills over reading the bible, or going to school to get a better job to work less and pay bigger bills over going to a bible study group, or ____ instead of reading a commentary (yes, there are easy ones out there).  We fail to make use of the wealth of resources at our fingertips because we “just don’t have time.”

The more often we “just don’t have time” for getting to know God, the more often we find ourselves acting like Israel in the face of spiritual and personal challenges instead of James, who admonished us to “consider it joy” (James 1:2).  That joy resulting from anticipating the coming sanctification, which is an act of God that glorifies God in and as a result of that trial.

My God can beat your god.

Exodus 7-12 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible.

Only the youngest Christians have neither heard, nor asked the question, “why do bad things happen?”  But even the youngest Christians, or at least the children of Christians in Sunday School, have heard this story.  The story of God vs. Egypt, with the purpose of redeeming Israel out of its 430 year slavery.  I believe that if Christians remembered this story as adults, they might have a better answer to the above question and related ones that follow it.  You might say, “wait, Pharaoh and the Egyptians are the bad guys in this story, they deserved it.”  I’m not so sure.  In this story, if we’re paying close attention, God sovereignly selected who the good guys and bad guys were, and he himself was the hero.

In our modern western mind, slavery is one of the most deeply repugnant offenses against humanity, but in the time in which this story occurs, it was normal practice.  Slavery was not yet considered immoral, even within the culture of God’s chosen people, and the Mosaic Laws that addressed slave ownership were not yet written.  In the standards of the day, there was nothing immoral or sinful about Pharaoh and Egypt enslaving Israel.  One later theme in Exodus is Israel’s complaining about its unpleasant circumstances in the wilderness, and preferring instead the slavery in Egypt.  No matter how bad the slavery in Egypt actually was, Israel’s memory of it seemed to be preferable to life in the wilderness.  Even though Pharaoh was certainly not one of God’s people, or even a convert, he wasn’t a bad person by the standards of the day.  He and many of the Egyptian people were exactly the types of folks for whom people today would ask “If God is loving, then why do bad things happen to ‘good’ people?”

One response is focused on the nature of the people, a pastor or thoughtful Christian might respond to that question with another, “‘good’ by whose standards?”  They would then proceed to talk about sin and the contrast of man’s sinful nature with the Holy nature of God.  That’s a good answer to start with, but I don’t think that it’s a complete answer.  I think that a better answer would focus on God’s nature first, then deal with human nature.  God is certainly loving, or else we would not have the hope offered in the Gospel, and scriptures whose primary purpose is to teach the Gospel.  But God is also sovereign.  Five times in the stories of the plagues, God proclaims “I am the LORD” (7:5, 7:17, 8:22, 10:2, 12:12).  What proceeds those statements is an explanation that the purpose for what is happening is so that the world, Egypt, and Israel will all know beyond doubt that Yahweh is the LORD, and there is none like him.

Not only are the plagues collectively brought on Egypt as a part of God’s plan to demonstrate his sovereignty, but several of the plagues also assault the Egyptian religious system.  The first plague of turning the Nile river system into blood showed Yahweh’s supremacy over the Nile god.  Through the frog infestation, the LORD demonstrated his superiority over the Egyptian goddess Heket.  From the statement in 8:26 that “… the offerings that we shall sacrifice to the LORD our God are abominable to the Egyptians,” we get the idea that it was offensive to the Egyptians to sacrifice certain animals because they deified those animals.  In the fifth plague, the death of the Egyptian livestock, we can be at least confident, if not certain, that some of the deified animals died – by which God again rose above the Egyptian gods.  In the ninth plague of darkness, God beat Ra, the Egyptian sun god.

Add to all of this, that the very word that we read as “plague,” מגּפה (maggêphâh), can potentially also be translated as “stroke,” “strike,” or “beat [down].”  The idea is clear that the LORD God was laying a literal smack-down on Egypt for his own sovereign purpose of being known and acknowledged as God, even though Egypt had done nothing wrong by the moral standard of the day.  It is tempting to object and say that God was being egotistical to force the world into recognizing him in such a way.  Which is absolutely, one hundred percent true.  God was being egotistical, and is egotistical even today when he brings calamity (or has mercy) on whomever he will so that he will be seen as God.  But God is the only entity for whom pride is not a sin.  It is perfectly ok, acceptable, and in fact HOLY for God to show such pride.

Related Posts:
We can’t get off the hook (Exodus 3-6)

See also:

Desiring God: 10 Reasons You Should Read the Book of Job

We can’t get off the hook.

Exodus 3-6 with notes from the Reformation Study Bible.

We aren’t let off the hook when God has a plan for us.  In this section of Exodus, Moses tries to make excuses about why he won’t be successful in doing the thing that God is sending him to do, or why he isn’t qualified.  Moses knows that it won’t be easy, but that the task is necessary.  Much like Christ knew that going to the cross wouldn’t be easy, but that it was necessary, and was reluctant to do it.  Even Christ – or at least the human part of him – pleaded with God to let him off the hook.  But God’s ultimate plan and promise to Israel was fulfilled in part by Moses eventually being obedient and going back to Egypt, just as God’s ultimate plan to redeem his elect was ultimately and finally fulfilled by Christ going to the Cross.

Moses silliest excuse for why he won’t be successful is “Well, God, I don’t know your name, so I can’t tell Pharaoh or Israel who sent me, and since I can’t tell them who sent me, they won’t listen to me.”  God smacks down that objection with “sure you do, tell them I AM sent you… tell them Yahweh sent you.”  I AM and Yahweh are both packed with meanings that point to God’s self-existence and ultimate sovereignty over everything in creation – including Egypt, Israel, Pharaoh, and Moses.  Moses didn’t go to Egypt to demand the freedom of God’s people under his own authority, like when he killed the Egyptian for beating one of the Hebrews, this time he acted with the authority of THE LORD.  Jesus of Nazareth wasn’t just a nice guy that came to earth to shake things up just because he felt like it, he was Jesus the Christ, the anointed one, come under the authority of God the Father to redeem his elect.

Moses was given miraculous signs to show to Pharaoh and Israel to authenticate his God-given authority.  Even after that, Moses still tried to get off the hook and hang the possible success of the whole plan on his own qualifications, and he was indeed utterly unqualified for his task.  He was a stuttering escaped convict, and a coward, that God later raised up to become Israel’s law giver.  Christ also did miracles to authenticate his authority.  But Jesus, unlike Moses, was fully and completely qualified for his task, and despite his fear of it, he did it.

God had a plan, Moses had excuses.  God didn’t let Moses off the hook, so Moses went to Egypt.  God had a plan, Christ had a humanly understandable fear of the cross.  God didn’t let himself of the hook – he didn’t let Jesus Christ (God incarnate) off the hook, so Christ went to the cross.

Once Moses and Aaron arrived in Egypt and had their first conversations with Israel’s elders and with Pharaoh, things didn’t go according to the human plan, even though God had told them what to expect.  God then reassured them that everything would work out just fine.  God has given us his plan and his reassurance in Scripture.  We’ll undoubtedly be much better prepared to face life’s challenges by exploring and endeavoring to understand God’s ultimate plan, and by seeking his reassurance.