Category Archives: In focus

Moses- A Worthy Leader

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Moses- A worthy leader

In focus. Rightly seeing God & How he sees us. Vision matters. 

As we look at each person this year, we are going to ask two questions: 

  1. How did they see God? 
  2. How does God see us? 

Moses is a familiar figure to us from scripture. He is born into a sad time in the history of God’s people. After the account of Joseph, who saved Egypt, but now they had forgotten about that time, and have put the Israelites in slavery. They had removed their freedom. What would this do to your self-esteem? To your self-worth? You would feel worthless. You would probably pass this understanding of worthlessness on to your children. 

Exodus 1:12 But the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And the Egyptians were in dread of the people of Israel. 13 So they ruthlessly made the people of Israel work as slaves 14 and made their lives bitter with hard service, in mortar and brick, and in all kinds of work in the field. In all their work they ruthlessly made them work as slaves. 

What would your view of God be? The God who promised your ancestors to make you a great nation. Would you think your God valued you at all? Maybe they thought to themselves, if God cared about us, if he thought we were worth so much to Him, why do I wake up as a slave every day? Why doesn’t he rescue me? Do you feel that way? Do you feel worthless? Do you feel like God cares about you or has forgotten about you? If He did why do I wake up still a slave to sin? Why can’t I get out of this cycle? Why doesn’t God rescue me? And that is how we see God. But in reality God is doing things we do not see. We need to adjust our vision. 

God was doing something in Moses’s day, that they did not see. In the end of chapter 1, we find the Hebrew midwifes, the ladies who delivered the babies for Israel, stilled feared God. And they ignore the instructions to kill all the boys. They saw God differently. The knew he was able to save them even if the most powerful man in the world told them something differently. 

Exodus 1:21 And because the midwives feared God, he gave them families. 22 Then Pharaoh commanded all his people, “Every son that is born to the Hebrews you shall cast into the Nile, but you shall let every daughter live.”

God gives blessing to Israel because of a few people who saw him the right way. Do not underestimate living as a person who rightly sees God and the effect what that means to God. 

Moses is born into this, saved by his sister in a baskets and grows up in the house of Pharaoh after being adopted by Pharaoh’s wife. 

Exodus 2:11 One day, when Moses had grown up, he went out to his people and looked on their burdens, and he saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his people. 12 He looked this way and that, and seeing no one, he struck down the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. 13 When he went out the next day, behold, two Hebrews were struggling together. And he said to the man in the wrong, “Why do you strike your companion?” 14 He answered, “Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid, and thought, “Surely the thing is known.” 15 When Pharaoh heard of it, he sought to kill Moses. But Moses fled from Pharaoh and stayed in the land of Midian. And he sat down by a well.

Somewhere along Moses’s upbringing he is either taught or learns about his Hebrew heritage. And as a grown man, he kills an Egyptian, runs aways from everything he knew. And he sits down by a well wondering what the rest of his life would bring. Do you think that he questioned if he was worthy or not? I am sure he questioned if God cared about him? The Egyptians sure didn’t care about him. I am sure Moses had to endure being told he was not worthy growing up, he was not a real son of Pharaoh, not a real Egyptian. He even got it from the Hebrews. Who do you think you are? The reality was, I don’t think he knew. So here he sits. Not sure how he sees God, and certainly not sure how God saw him.

He meets the daughters of the priest of Midian, goes home with them, marries one of them and picks up their family trade; becoming a shepherd. He was happy. Maybe he began to enjoy what he was doing, but I do not think he had answered the question of how God saw him?  But God was about to clear that up for him.

Exodus 2:23 During those many days the king of Egypt died, and the people of Israel groaned because of their slavery and cried out for help. Their cry for rescue from slavery came up to God. 24 And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. 25 God saw the people of Israel—and God knew.

God knew. He already knew what He was going to do to help them. Keep reading. 

Exodus 3:1 Now Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law, Jethro, the priest of Midian, and he led his flock to the west side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. 2 And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush. He looked, and behold, the bush was burning, yet it was not consumed. 3 And Moses said, “I will turn aside to see this great sight, why the bush is not burned.” 4 When the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here I am.” 5 Then he said, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” 6 And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. 7 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, 8 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, to the place of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. 9 And now, behold, the cry of the people of Israel has come to me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them. 10 Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” 11 But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”

God lays out his whole plan to Moses. He opens his eyes to see things how God is looking at the situation. It is like God putting his arm around him and saying, “Look Moses, here is what we are going to do. I will send you.” But Moses didn’t see it like God did, in fact, he informs God how he sees himself, “Who am I?” I am not worthy to do what you are saying. Then he is going to go on to tell God, he is not capable of doing what God is asking him to go do. 

God’s anger burns at his view of himself, at all his excuses, and he says, enough. I am sending you with my mighty hand. Aaron will speak for you. You will be like god to Him. Moses finally agreed and went to meet Aaron. 

Exodus 4:28 And Moses told Aaron all the words of the Lord with which he had sent him to speak, and all the signs that he had commanded him to do. 29 Then Moses and Aaron went and gathered together all the elders of the people of Israel. 30 Aaron spoke all the words that the Lord had spoken to Moses and did the signs in the sight of the people. 31 And the people believed; and when they heard that the Lord had visited the people of Israel and that he had seen their affliction, they bowed their heads and worshiped.

Do you think that in the moment Moses began to see God differently? The people believed him. What changed? Moses submitted to God. He allowed God to open his eyes. He began to see that maybe he was a capable leader like God said he would be. He goes on to lead the people out of Egypt, become the leader of a million people. He is the spiritual leader who gives them the law. He is the judge over all the people. He becomes one of the largest figures in the history of the Christian world besides Jesus. A man who sat at a well wondering how God saw him. 

What would Moses tell you if you are sitting here doubting your self worth, or your ability to be a leader? Trust God. Be careful to do all that he commands you to do. See him the right way. Know that how he sees you is much different than how we see ourselves. Get up from the well you may find yourself setting at and trust God.

Elijah- Last One Standing

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This year we have been looking at the theme of “In focus”. Rightly seeing God & How he sees us. Vision matters. 

As we look at each person this year, we are going to ask two questions: 

  1. How did they see God? 
  2. How does God see us? 

In this post, we are going to look at one of my favorite people in the Bible. Elijah. 

Elijah was a prophet. Now in a normal time a prophet had a hard job. They were to speak on God’s behalf delivering messages to people. Sometimes that was to a king sometimes to a whole nation. They also acted a protector of the laws and covenant of God and called people to repent and return to following the law. That job is certainly hard enough but Elijah did not live in a normal time. 

He lived in a time around 870-850 AD, after the death of Solomon. Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, becomes king but after trying to collect more taxes, the northern tribes split from Rehoboam and form their own kingdom, (still named Israel.) Rehoboam is still king of the southern kingdom, now called Judah. The northern kingdom makes Samaria their capital and set up two idol temples in Dan and Bethel. They do not produce one single king out of 20 who faithfully followed God or stayed away from idol worship. The southern kingdom only had 8 kings out of 20 who followed God. 

So in 1 Kings chapter 17, God calls Elijah, a man who lives in the desert to serve as a prophet. We are not told anything about his family. The first thing we are told about him is the message he sent to give. 

1 Kings 17:1 Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 

This is a big deal because he is sent to deliver this message too is Ahab. One of the most evil kings in Israel’s history. He is married to Jezebel, equally evil. He did more to anger God than all the kings before him. (1Kings 16:30,33) He erected an alter to Baal. In the Canaanite religion, they believed Baal controlled the rain. So this becomes a big deal to have God show that He, not Baal, is in control. 

Elijah delivers the message and then is told to go hide and God would feed him by ravens and a brook. And he does until the river dries up. He is sent to a widow who God has told to feed him. This widow had enough to feed herself and her son one more meal, she trusted God, listened to Elijah, made the meal to feed him, and never ran out of flour and oil again. Soon after her son got sick and died. Elijah asks God to bring him back to life. 

1 King 17:21Then he stretched himself upon the child three times and cried to the Lord, “O Lord my God, let this child’s life come into him again.” 22 And the Lord listened to the voice of Elijah. And the life of the child came into him again, and he revived. 23 And Elijah took the child and brought him down from the upper chamber into the house and delivered him to his mother. And Elijah said, “See, your son lives.” 24 And the woman said to Elijah, “Now I know that you are a man of God, and that the word of the Lord in your mouth is truth.”

Notice how God sees him. He calls him to serve as a prophet, trust him to deliver an extremely hard message so people began to turn back to God again. How does Elijah see God? He trust him. He obeys God without question. He believes God will do what he says. He allows God to take care of him. We find 7 miraculous things God does through the life of Elijah. And it comes down to seeing God the way God sees us. Elijah needed this kind of vision because what was coming next would be harder than before. 

1 Kings 18:1 After many days the word of the Lord came to Elijah, in the third year, saying, “Go, show yourself to Ahab, and I will send rain upon the earth.” 2 So Elijah went to show himself to Ahab. Now the famine was severe in Samaria. 

On the way he runs into Obadiah, who was over king Ahab’s house. It says Obadiah feared God but he also feared Ahab. He informs Elijah that Ahab has sent people to every nation looking for him. He says go back and tell him you found me. Odadiah said, no way! Ahad will kill me. 

1 Kings 18:13 Has it not been told my lord what I did when Jezebel killed the prophets of the Lord, how I hid a hundred men of the Lord’s prophets by fifties in a cave and fed them with bread and water? 14 And now you say, ‘Go, tell your lord, “Behold, Elijah is here”‘; and he will kill me.” 15 And Elijah said, “As the Lord of hosts lives, before whom I stand, I will surely show myself to him today.” 16 So Obadiah went to meet Ahab, and told him. And Ahab went to meet Elijah.

17 When Ahab saw Elijah, Ahab said to him, “Is it you, you troubler of Israel?” 18 And he answered, “I have not troubled Israel, but you have, and your father’s house, because you have abandoned the commandments of the Lord and followed the Baals. 19 Now therefore send and gather all Israel to me at Mount Carmel, and the 450 prophets of Baal and the 400 prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

He see God working through Obadiah right under Aha’s nose hiding a hundred prophets of God. He continues to see God protecting him. He does his job as a prophet and reminds Ahab that he was abandoned God. He lays down a bold challenge to Ahab and instructs him to bring all the false prophets. Baal was the storm god. Asherah was the wife of the high god El. 850 vs 1. How do you think Elijah saw God? 

What happens next is one my favorite parts of Elijah’s story but it is not the focus of the story we are going to focus on. Elijah wins the challenge to call down fire from God to prove that God is God. His vision was perfect. 

1 Kings 18:36 And at the time of the offering of the oblation, Elijah the prophet came near and said, “O Lord, God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and that I am your servant, and that I have done all these things at your word. 37 Answer me, O Lord, answer me, that this people may know that you, O Lord, are God, and that you have turned their hearts back.” 38 Then the fire of the Lord fell and consumed the burnt offering and the wood and the stones and the dust, and licked up the water that was in the trench. 39 And when all the people saw it, they fell on their faces and said, “The Lord, he is God; the Lord, he is God.”

Next comes the rain. (1 Kings 18:41-46) But then there is a change in Elijah. 

1 King 19:1 Ahab told Jezebel all that Elijah had done, and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. 2 Then Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah, saying, “So may the gods do to me and more also, if I do not make your life as the life of one of them by this time tomorrow.” 3 Then he was afraid, and he arose and ran for his life and came to Beersheba, which belongs to Judah, and left his servant there. 4 But he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness and came and sat down under a broom tree. And he asked that he might die, saying, “It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” 

He was afraid. Up to this point we do not find Elijah afraid. He is the one who trust God, who knows that God is able. He become depressed. He wanted to die. This does not sound like the confident Elijah we all know. His vision has changed. 

God sends an angel to strength him. He gets up and continues. 

1 Kings 19:9 There he came to a cave and lodged in it. And behold, the word of the Lord came to him, and he said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 10 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” 

He starts believing that he is the only one. He thinks he is alone even though it says God is with him. What does it take for him to become this wrong? Does he not remember what Obadiah said? There are 100 prophets hidden. But he still feels alone. So God shows up to remind him who he is, to refocus how he sees things. 

1 Kings 19:13b ”What are you doing here, Elijah?” 14 He said, “I have been very jealous for the Lord, the God of hosts. For the people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword, and I, even I only, am left, and they seek my life, to take it away.” 15 And the Lord said to him, “Go, return on your way to the wilderness of Damascus. And when you arrive, you shall anoint Hazael to be king over Syria. 16 And Jehu the son of Nimshi you shall anoint to be king over Israel, and Elisha the son of Shaphat of Abel-meholah you shall anoint to be prophet in your place. 17 And the one who escapes from the sword of Hazael shall Jehu put to death, and the one who escapes from the sword of Jehu shall Elisha put to death. 18 Yet I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal, and every mouth that has not kissed him.” 

God did not just reserve 100 but seven thousand. Elijah is not alone. God brings him Elisha to take his place as prophet. Elijah see that. He thought God had left him alone. But God did not. Serving God can sometimes feel very lonely. Even when we are faithfully obeying God. We are going to have days where we ask, where are you God? Where is everyone else? We don’t feel connected to God. And God pulls back the curtain and show us not only has He not abandoned us but He has preserved his people who are standing alongside us all along. 

Look next to you. Put on the right set of eyes that sees a God full of power to protect, work, and to enable us to be people who work powerfully for him, even when it feels like the world around us is serving someone else. Keep serving God. Watch what He will do with your devotion. It is not in vain. 

CORRECTING OUR VISION

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Saul/Paul- The Divider turned Uniter

Acts 8:1-3, 9:1-2, 10-16, 20-22, 28-31 

In focus. Rightly seeing God & How he sees us. Vision matters. It makes all the difference in the world. Eye problems effect almost 90% of us at one time or another in our lives. Near sighted. Far sighted. Cataracts. Color Blindness. Have you ever seen videos of people who wake up from surgery after fixing serious eye problems and see their reaction? Or maybe you have seen videos of people who are color blind who have received a pair of glasses that enable them to see things in color for the first time. It is amazing to watch and brings tears to your eyes knowing the difference it will make in their lives. 

When your vision is corrected, it is life changing. 

We often go through life believing we see God a certain way when in reality He is not that way at all. He is not a wish granter. He is not an angry God who enjoys our punishments. God is perfect. We need to see him without all the flaws we assigned to him. We need to put things in focus. 

Has anyone ever said to you, “Look, right there!” “Where?” You said. “How could you not see that?” We may have missed something one of a kind because we need our vision corrected. We may miss the majesty and power of God on display right in front of our eyes. 

This year, I really hope you look hard, take off your lens of preconceived ideas, wipe them clean with scripture, and see what God is going to point out through the lives of people in scripture that have some of the same vision problems we do. 

Throughout the year, I will post a number of these post on this subject. We are going to start the year looking at the life of Saul or Paul, depending on when you pick up his story. As we look at each person this year, we are going to ask two questions: 

  1. How did they see God? 
  2. How does God see us? 

First, let’s look at how Saul saw God. We know a number of things about Saul (or Paul) from scripture and history. He was a tentmaker only a few years younger than Jesus. Saul’s father was a Pharisee. (Acts 23:6)  He born in a Roman city making him a Roman citizen. But he is also a Jew. “I am a Jew, from Tarsus in Cilicia, a citizen of no ordinary city.” (Acts 21:39) Romans 11:1, “I am an Israelite myself, a descendant of Abraham, from the tribe of Benjamin.” Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin, the same family King Saul came from. He trained at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the select group of masters of the Jewish Law. So here he was living with this heritage and in service to the God of Israel. 

If we had to sum up how Paul saw God, we could say he felt chosen by God. After all, God had always chosen his family. He choose his ancestor Abraham, King Saul, and now him to be appointed by God. He saw God as the God of the Jews only. He saw those who followed this Jesus, as impostors to the one true God that appointed him. 

Acts 8:1-3 And Saul approved of his execution.

And there arose on that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. 2 Devout men buried Stephen and made great lamentation over him. 3 But Saul was ravaging the church, and entering house after house, he dragged off men and women and committed them to prison. 

Acts 9:1-2 But Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. 

Is there anything wrong with his vision? How do you think he saw God? Did God support his efforts to persecute the church? Saul thought he was clear on what he was doing. His passion made sense to him. He even did it with the support of the temple. God’s temple. But Saul missed some things. He didn’t hear Jesus talk about the kingdom of God. Where was he when Jesus was preforming miracles? Did he ever stop by the empty tomb? God was fully behind Jesus but Saul missed it. Saul must have thought that this moment had died out with the death of Jesus. Can you imagine his shock with thousands began following in a matter of weeks? God had opened the eyes of so many and he was about to open Saul’s eyes. 

How did God see Him? We need to look no father then the conversation God has with Ananias about Saul. Look at Acts 9. 

10 Now there was a disciple at Damascus named Ananias. The Lord said to him in a vision, “Ananias.” And he said, “Here I am, Lord.” 11 And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, 12 and he has seen in a vision a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.” 13 But Ananias answered, “Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. 14 And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name.” 15 But the Lord said to him, “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. 16 For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.”

I can’t imagine Ananias had been a disciple very long before this and we have no indication of why God choose him and not someone else. He is as ambiguous as us. But immediately he knew who God was talking about. And he couldn’t be more surprised. God told Ananias that Saul was going to be a chosen instrument for God. Not chosen to crush this moment but lead it, unite it, and expand it. He wanted this Jewish Roman tentmaker to leave his inner circle of chosen people to spread the message to kings and Gentiles that the kingdom of God is open to all. 

Acts 9:20 And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, “He is the Son of God.” 21 And all who heard him were amazed and said, “Is not this the man who made havoc in Jerusalem of those who called upon this name? And has he not come here for this purpose, to bring them bound before the chief priests?” 22 But Saul increased all the more in strength, and confounded the Jews who lived in Damascus by proving that Jesus was the Christ.

Acts 9:28 So he went in and out among them at Jerusalem, preaching boldly in the name of the Lord.  29 And he spoke and disputed against the Hellenists. But they were seeking to kill him.  30 And when the brothers learned this, they brought him down to Caesarea and sent him off to Tarsus. 31 So the church throughout all Judea and Galilee and Samaria had peace and was being built up. And walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it multiplied.

He regained his sight. His vision of how saw God him was corrected. He saw the way God saw him. It made all the difference in the world. He Paul goes on to write more than half of the New Testament over just 17 years, 4 of those while in prison. He had scattered the church and now he was writing letter after letter, missionary trip after trip, one discussion after another to unite the church. 

We find ourselves in a similar situation sometimes. Not dragging people out of their homes, but seeing God incorrectly. We may think God is ok with things we are doing, we have even convinced ourselves that he approves and supports us in them, but we have missed things. You will overwhelmingly know if God is supporting you. You will see things happen that you can not explain. Things that only God can do. God has made his will known, his purpose clear, and your involvement in his kingdom defined. 

He needs us to see him correctly and understand how He sees us. It decides what we do with in our faith. 

ONE. Unity became so important to Paul because it was important to God. God showed him that. He showed Paul how far they each had to come for unity. What would it cost them to be one. What did it cost Paul to participate in it and lead others to peace? What was the price paid to make us one? Our unity must be as precious to us as the blood of Christ was to God.