Tag: Moses

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Law of Stickiness

Daily Reading

Exodus 30-32

Daily Thought

The Hebrew people watched as God showered plagues of frogs and flies and fire, blood and boils and death. Ten plagues it took to convince the Pharaoh of Egypt to heed God’s demand to “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 8, 20, 21; 9:1, 13; 10:4), until he changed his mind and the Egyptian army boxed the Israelites against the Red Sea. So God parted the sea and the Hebrew people escaped, then closed the sea and the Egyptian army drowned. This is the Exodus and it was amazing. It would have made a great movie. The people of God had been delivered from slavery and were heading toward the Promised Land. It was the kind of thing you never forget. 

You would think. 

The Hebrew people watched as God showered plagues of frogs and flies and fire, blood and boils and death. Ten plagues it took to convince the Pharaoh of Egypt to heed God’s repeated demand to “Let my people go” (Exodus 5:1; 7:16; 8:1, 8, 20, 21; 9:1, 13; 10:4), but then Pharaoh changed his mind again and the Egyptian army pursued the Israelites and boxed them against the Red Sea. So God parted the sea and gave the Hebrew people an escape, then closed the sea and drowned the Egyptian army. This is the Exodus and it was amazing. It would make a great movie. The people of God had been delivered from slavery and were heading toward the Promised Land. It was the kind of thing you never forget. 

People have short memories, They are impatient and fickle. They were then and they are now. For example, a good web site designer knows the first law of the web, The Law of Stickiness: People are sticky, but they are not loyal. If they find a web site that serves their needs they stick with it, but the moment that site disappoints (by being slower than usual or temporarily unavailable), they move to the competition. The Law of God says, “I am the LORD your God. You shall have no other gods before me” (Exodus 20:2-3); but the Law of Stickiness says God must improve his performance or we will make a golden calf.  

There is a problem, however, the golden calf is not really an alternative. “Know therefore today, and lay it to your heart, that the LORD is God in heaven above and on the earth beneath; there is no other” (Deuteronomy 4:39). The LORD alone is God. There is no competition. And that means, you do not seek an alternative, you do not switch to a golden calf. You wait. If God is late (and God is always late), wait–“I wait for the LORD, my soul waits, and in his word I put my hope” (Psalm 130:5). God is often slow just so I will wait, so I will learn to wait. How much beauty I miss because I do not wait, because he makes all things beautiful in its time (Ecclesiastes 3:10), not mine. 

Daily Prayer

My Father in Heaven, how I trust in You. My confidence is in Your goodness and Your strength. My life is in Your care. I know that You offer life, life overflowing, abundant life.

May I always seek You first. May I always seek You only. Your kingdom with Your Son on the throne is my greatest hope. May I at all times maintain loyalty to You, keep faith in You, wait on You, trust in You. You are God.

Amen

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Hammer It Home

Daily Reading

Exodus 7-9

Daily Thought

Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go in to Pharaoh and say to him, ‘Thus says the Lord, “Let my people go, that they may serve me. ~Exodus 8:1

Twice, God says to Moses, “I will harden Pharaoh’s heart” (Exodus 4:21; 7:3), and a hard-hearted Pharaoh refuses to let God’s people go, but what choice does a he have? Is he to blame? If God “hardens whomever he wills,” the apostle Paul asked and (sort of) answered this question, “why does God still find fault? For who can resist God’s will? But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, ‘Why have you made me like this?’ Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use?” (Romans 9:18-21). In other words, God is God and you are not, and he does what he wants for his purposes. Not a terribly satisfying answer, but then, God does not have to satisfy me. 

God is sovereign, but that does not mean we are puppets. God does not pull our strings, but God’s sovereignty and our freewill walk together, side by side. Of the ten plagues, the Bible says God hardened Pharaoh’s heart in four of them; in six, Pharaoh hardened his own heart. God is in charge and Pharaoh cooperates. He is no innocent; he cannot point to God and claim, “You made me do it.”

But why ten times? Why so many plagues? The answer is in the stubbornness of Pharaoh, but also in the First Commandment, “You shall have no other gods before me.” Israel worshipped God; every other nation worshipped gods. So, the one and only true God used the plagues to demonstrate that he is God like no other. The first couple plagues, the Egyptian magicians were able to mimic the work of God, as if God wasn’t unique. But they couldn’t keep up. By the third plague, they admitted, “This is the finger of God,” and God continued seven more plagues to hammer it home. The Egyptians would never forget the Hebrew God, the God of gods, the only true God, and the Israelites would always remember their God who delivered them from bondage.

God is God. That seems obvious, but it’s good to remember. 

Daily Prayer

My God, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last, the One and Only Creator of the heavens and the earth, You alone I worship and adore. Your ways are good and there is none like You. Why would I ever seek good from another source?

May Your Name be known always in my house. May You always be God of my family–we seek no other. May my children and my children’s children (someday!) follow You and worship You. You are my Lord and Savior. I will always remember.

Amen

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The Next Right Thing

Daily Reading

Exodus 4-6

Daily Thought

Moses, after hiding in Midian, obeys God and returns to Egypt to speak against the Pharaoh on behalf of the nation of Israel. Along the way, something strange occurs: “At a lodging place on the way the Lord met him and sought to put him to death. Then Zipporah took a flint and cut off her son’s foreskin and touched Moses’ feet with it and said, ‘Surely you are a bridegroom of blood to me!’ So he let him alone” (Exodus 4:24-26). Why does God threaten Moses with death shortly after he had commissioned him to go to Egypt?

God promised to Abraham he would be a great nation and established a sign of circumcision securing that covenant (see Genesis 17:9-14). Delivering the Israelites from slavery to Egypt was part of God keeping his promise, but Moses, God’s chosen leader, had broken covenant. It seems Zipporah, his wife, was repulsed by the very idea of circumcision and Moses had accommodated his wife rather than do what was right. Moses messed up, he did the wrong thing. He could not do the wrong thing and, at the same time, lead Israel to God’s promised land. But there is grace. Zipporah did wrong, but then she did right. She circumcised her son, and Moses survived God’s wrath.

Following God, you will mess up sometimes, like Moses. You will not always do the right thing, but after you do the wrong thing, God’s grace gives you the opportunity to do the next right thing. Following God is not always doing the right thing, but doing the next right thing.

Daily Prayer

Mighty God, thank You for salvation and grace and Your goodness. You saved me from bondage of my own making, my sin. Thank You, as well, for Your righteousness and holiness. Saved by grace, may I live for You. May I hunger and thirst for Your righteousness. May I live rightly. 

I should not cheapen Your grace by taking advantage of it. Instead, I shall each day wake up and see the day before me as a gift from You, and delight in it. I shall remember that I am Your workmanship, made to do good works, that others will praise You. I shall love You fully, and live out Your love to this world. Help me do that, God!

Amen