Category: Devotionals

Perfect Score

And God spoke all these words,

Exodus. 20:1

Because lawlessness shall abound, the love of many will grow cold.
Matthew 24:12

Read Exodus 20:1-21

Throughout the world many will be tuning into Brazil to see many nations competing on the fields of friendly strife of football. With the World Cup kick off the very thing that makes football understandable and enjoyable is that there are rules in place to turn it from a gaggle of 22 players into a beautiful sport. Without laws governing football, the game would be impossible to be played.

Have you ever wondered what the purpose of the Ten Commandments was? What is the purpose of the Law? Is it simply to impose a heavy burden. Is it a way to show us how to achieve a 10 out of 10 Score? Are they 10 ways to be perfect?

The Law serves three purposes. An easy way to remember this is SOS . 1. The Law Shows us Our Sin. 2. The Law Shows us Our Savior. 3. The Law Shows us Sactification.

SOS Shows us our Sin

The first aspect of the Law can be described as prohibitive. It tells us what not to do.

1. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” (Ex. 20:3). If this first Commandment received the respect it demands, obedience to the other nine would follow as a matter of course. “Thou shalt have no other gods before Me” means, Thou shalt have no other object of worship: thou shalt own no other authority as absolute: thou shalt make Me supreme in your hearts and lives. How much this first commandment contains! There are other “gods” besides idols of wood and stone. Money, pleasure, fashion, fame, gluttony, and a score of other things which make self supreme, usurp the rightful place of God in the affections and thoughts of many. It is not without reason that even to the saints the exhortation is given, “Little children keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21). (Arthur Pink, Exodus p. 146)

SOS Shows us our Saviour

The second aspect of the Law prophetic. It tells us who God is. It tells us how he rescues us.

Jesus when walking with the two disciples on Emmaus taught us that all the Law and the Prophets speak about Him. Often we only want to see prefiguration of Jesus in the Old Testament where the connection is explicit. Jesus tells us that the commandment “You shall not lie”(Ex 20:16) is actually telling us something about His Character. It tells us that Jesus is the Truth, “I am the Truth”(John 14:16), When it says “You shall not murder,” the Law teaches us that God is the Lord of the Life, “I am the Life.”

The Law shows us the Redeemer. On the Cross Jesus fulfilled all the requirements of the Law. “Do not think i have come to abolish the Law. I have not come to abolish the Law. I have come to fulfill it.”(Matt 5:17-19). The Law commands what Grace now empowers.

Jesus life and death gives us a perfect score and we did not even lift a finger to accomplish this. Just as the whole team benefits when one person scores a goal, so we benefit and receive the perfection Jesus achieved for us in his life, death, and resurrection.

SOS Show us Sanctification

The third aspect of the Law is Prescriptive. It tells us what a beautiful life and a good life looks like.

Just as we humans invented Football, the rules turn it into a beautiful game. Not following the rules makes the game impossible to play.  When the rules are followed camaraderie, joy, fun, and delight are unleashed.

God gives us ten ways to be perfect not so that we may attain perfection but that we receive Jesus’ perfection and then in response revel in it. Sactification does not earn us God’s love, it shows our response to God’s Love on the Cross.

The supreme test of love is the desire and effort to please the one loved, and this measured by conformity to his known wishes. Love to God is expressed by obedience to His will. Only One has perfectly exemplified this, and of Him it is written, “I will delight to do Your will, O My God: yes, Your law is within My heart” (Ps. 40:8).
(A. W. Pink. Gleanings In Exodus.)

Weight of the World

“What you are doing is not good. 18 You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out, for the thing is too heavy for you. You are not able to do it alone.”

Exodus 18:17b-18

Read Exodus 18:1-27

One of the virtues western culture espouses is the idea of independence. We can live our life on our own. The novelist Ayn Rand captured this when she said,:

“I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” (Atlas Shrugged)

It has the ring of independence and of strength, but at its heart is unliveable as we will all wear out and run out of strength one day.

Moses now faces the arduous task of nation building. The people of Israel have gone from an idea and concept to a reality and entity.  Nation building requires planning, money, strength, integrity and justice to name a few things.

In this episode of the Exodus, Moses is meting out justice. Rather than gather a team and empower them, Moses sets out to do it all on his own.  He would rather bear the weight of the world than acknowledge that he may actually need help. He would rather rely on his own strength than ask God and the people of God for help.

We are very much like Moses, We may pay lip-service to our dependence on God, yet live life as though we were functionally independent from most everything. This way of living is exhausting. We will fulfill the words Jethro spoke to Moses, “You and the people with you will certainly wear yourselves out”(Exodus 18:18).

One of the aspects of sin is a desire for complete autonomy and independence. There is only one being in the whole universe who can be said to be completely autonomous and independent, God. If we try to be God we will place a burden too heavy for our souls to carry. Acknowledging our finiteness and our need for help is one of the aspects of repentance. Dependence is not a sign of weakness, rather it is a sign of strength. It is a sign of being empowered.

Paul writes, “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”(Gal. 6:2). God calls us to relinquish our indepence and lean on Him. He calls us to lean on one another. We all have different gifts and are in need of our brother and sisters to complement and strengthen us.

Reflect on two things today: 1.What way will you rely on God today as a sign of dependence? 2. What way will you rely on someone else to remind yourself of your humanity and creatureliness?

Plead your case

So the people contended with Moses, and they said, “Give us water to drink!” Moses said to them, “Why do you contend with me?’

Exodus 17:2 [NET]

Read Exodus 17:1-7

“You keep using the word inconceivable, but I do not believe you know what it means,” says Iñigo de Montoya to one of his companions in the film, “The Princess Bride.” How often have you used only to discover it had a different meaning than you thought?

Often we read this passage and it seems to have the ring of a bunch of spoilt children whinging to their older siblings and parents. Most translations lose the force of the word “contend” (vayyarev). The word means “strive, quarrel, be in contention” and even “litigation.” A translation “quarrel” does not appear to capture the magnitude of what is being done here. The people have a legal dispute — they are contending with Moses as if bringing a lawsuit.  But their lawsuit is not truly with Moses, it is with God.

At the heart of this episode is an intensely human desire for justice. We all desire to be treated fairly. We all desire to be cared for. The people of Israel are plaintiffs in a case asking for vindication. They feel like they have been wronged and misled. As we continue to read we see that Moses feels this same sense of injustice. “Why do you contend with me? It is unfair for you to litigate against me? It is God who has brought us to the wilderness.”

God is well aware of the children of Israel and their formal complaint.  The very language and structure of the Hebrew is one in which a a complaint is logically being laid out. They are all building a case against God. If God were who he said he were he would not rule this universe in the way it currently runs.

The people are ready to lynch Moses. They are taking justice into their hands. Before the end of the day Moses will be stoned if they can get their way. God, ever attentive of their cries for help, intervenes.

“Behold, I will stand before you there on the rock at Horeb, and you shall strike the rock, and water shall come out of it, and the people will drink.”
Exodus 17:6

Once again the vocabulary is lost on us. The word which God uses to say he will stand before his people is the same word used a chapter later to speak of the people of Israel standing before a judge. (Exodus 18:13).

In the midst of our misdirected sense of justice and outright unthankfulness, God himself intervenes. His honor and justice are at stake. He is a God who is both good and loving. The only way to satisfy their thirst for justice is for the guilty to be punished. God loves his people too much to allow them to stand trial. He stands in their place. The Just Judge is judged in our place.

Moses strikes the rock and the wounded rock bursts with living water.

Today reflect on his justice and drink deeply of his grace. Throw away any misperceptions of justice and embrace his righteousness.

Strengthen the Brothers

…Aaron and Hur held up [Moses’] hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady… Exodus 17:12b

Read Exodus 17:8-16

How do you recharge? After a long day or week of work how do you replenish your strength? Do you recharge being around people? Or you do you recharge by sipping a cup a tea by yourself? Both of these practices recharge us. One involves the spiritual discipline of fellowship and the other solitude.  Both of these practices remind us of God’s pronouncement, “It is not good that the man should be alone.” (Gen. 2:18).

We were built for fellowship. The purpose of fellowship is to feed us spiritually, emotionally and socially.  God designed the very getting together of His people on Sunday so that we do not have to travel this life alone spiritually. An intentional day of rest is only rest when it is right ordered worship.

Moses and the people of Israel are now sojourning in the wilderness of Sinai. A wilderness is a place of solitude. It is a place bereft of even the basics for sustenance. The wilderness and solitude remind us that we need more than ourselves to live and thrive.

Moses and Israel are faced with the implacable enemy of Amalek. Israel attempts to fight in their strength. Their efforts are feeble struggles at best. The only way to survive is acknowledge that they do not need to face their struggles alone. God instructs Moses to raise his hands to Him. Raised hands show that we come empty handed in surrender. It is an internationally recognised symbol of surrender.  God surrounds Moses with able helpers such as Aaron, Hur, Miriam, and Jethro just to list a few.

When Moses’ hands become weak Aaron and Joshua strengthen him. It is in weakness that the Helper comes. It is in weakness that we receive the Helper. We were built for community. We were built for Pentecost. As the hymn-writer William Booth put it, “Make our weak hearts strong and brave, Send the Fire!”

Today pray:

Father, I thank you that your Son faced the ultimate loneliness in the Wilderness of the Cross so that I could be brought into fellowship and strengthened. Thank your for the gift of your Church that I do not have to travel this world alone. Thank you for the gift of your Spirit ‘who helps us in our weakness.” May I live in community that reflects love, the essence of fellowship. May this reflect your very nature as Trinity: Love.

Amen

Remember Everything

Then the LORD said to Moses, “Behold, I am about to rain bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a day’s portion every day…

     Ex. 16:4

Read Exodus 16:1-36

What is it?

Evernote? Post It? Stickies? Moleskine? iCal appointments? Exchange Diary meetings? Each of these serve the purpose to remind us. We have invented more ways to remember and yet seem more and more prone to forget.

It has been a month since the people of Israel left the Red Sea (the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. Exodus 16:1).  They saw an amazing deliverance. Up to this point in their history as a people group, they had never been so overwhelmed by a miraculous act of grace and redemption.

A month later what is their complaint? God did not want them to be happy. Their belief is that they were happier in the “good old days.” They were happier when they were in Egypt. They may not have been free, but they were fed. Even the very name of Manna or “what is it” implies forgetfulness. They forgot what the lash of Pharaoh really felt like. They forgot the wonder of the Redeemer.

Often times we are just like this, our present predicament supposedly outshines the promises of God.

You know the worst thing in the world is to be forgotten, to have people forget you, to have people forget who you are, to have people forget you were coming.

But this is the image of grace. A God who has been forgotten, suffered the anguish of oblivion still pursues us and desires a relationship with us. That is what sin is, forgetfulness of the saving and sustaining grace of God.

In the midst of our forgetfulness, Christ comes to us. He declares “I am the bread from heaven.”(John 6:41).  Hear the savior say, “Though you forget me I will not forget you. I will redeem you. I will sustain you. I will provide for you.” Today remember that God has not just provided for you in some distant past event, but every day he sustains you. The antidote to grumbling is remembrance. The Lord remembers you. Let this transform you.

Is. 49:15

Can a woman forget her nursing child,
that she should have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget,
yet I will not forget you.

The Real You

“25 And he cried to the LORD, and the LORD showed him a log, and he threw it into the water, and the water became sweet. There the LORD made for them a statute and a rule, and there he tested them,26…I am the LORD, your healer.”

     Exodus 15:25-26

Read Exodus 15:22-27

Have you ever had a knee jerk reaction when driving? Perhaps someone cut you off. Perhaps the other driver was engaging in some aggressive driving. What is your first reaction? If you are like me you may voice you frustration with a grunt, a sigh or even get angry at the other driver. I remember doing this sort of complaining. Immediately, I apologized and made excuses for myself. I told my wife, “It wasn’t really me. It was just my Mediterranean upbringing.”

Who we really are is revealed when we are pushed to our limits.

In this story the people of Israel have successfully escaped the clutches of Pharaoh. They are now free, hot, tired and thirsty. When they finally find a desert well. They discover its waters, like so many other desert wells, are bitter. They feel let down.

Their response: murmur. There are over a dozen passages in the Pentateuch where such ‘murmuring’ is mentioned. They grumble against Moses. They grumble against God.  By their grumbling reaction, Israel showed only too clearly their true nature when under test.

Here is the first of successive heart surgeries where God wants to heal Israel. God desires to change Israel in such a way that when pushed in extremis—to its visceral limit—it will ooze not bitterness but sweetness.

God proclaims that he will turn the bitter into sweet. Many years later in a Garden called the “Olive Press” (Gethsemane).  The real personality of a person pushed to the extreme will be revealed. It is only when olives are crushed that they yield a beautiful and healing oil. Jesus, when pushed to his extreme limit, shows us the true healing of the heart that God desires to effect in humanity. He wants to take our grumbling and bitterness and turn it into something beautiful and sweet. It is in the waters of testing, that Jesus transforms our will into something beautiful.

Today let God heal you.

Pray:

“Father, as I go through the pressures of life, may I discover the who I really am. May I also become who you really desire me to be. Test me. Try me. Purify me. Fashion me more in your image that I may be able to say ‘Your will be done’ rather than ‘My will be done.’ I ask this all for the sake of your Son, Jesus.  Amen.”

Bathed in Blessing

Exodus 14:22 And the people of Israel went into the midst of the sea on dry ground, the waters being a wall to them on their right hand and on their left.

Read Exodus 13:17-15:21

Have you ever been to a baptism service? What is the largest number of baptism candidates you have seen? One? Two? Ten? Twenty? This passage we just read is the largest baptism service the world has ever witnessed. Paul tells us, “I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea,”(1Cor. 10:1-2)

1. How do we get every spiritual blessing?

What does baptism mean? It literally means to be bathed. Rediscovering redemption means exploring what it means to be bathed in blessing. God tells Pharaoh that Israel is His firstborn son, and ‘I say to you, “Let my son go that he may serve me.”(Exodus 4:22-23a)

One the beauties of redemption is the concept of adoption. Adoption carries with it at least three main concepts, if not more.

Adoption means access. If a person tries to run towards the prime minister unannounced the prime minister’s security detail will most probably tackle them before they reach their objective. Rewind this whole situation and now have the person running towards the prime minister be his son or daughter. Now the protective detail will no longer tackle, it will aid and even grant access. Sonship or daughterhood grants us access.

Adoption grants us an incomparable inheritance. This inheritance is of greater value than any gold spoils we may take from Egypt.

Thirdly adoption grants us security. We are kept safe from any dangers, toils, or snares that Pharaoh may try to throw our way. You can hear God saying to Pharaoh, “If you mess with my son you mess with me.”

2. Why do we get every blessing?

In Harry Potter, when Harry asks Dumbledore, “Why can’t the bad guy touch me?” Dumbledore explains, “Because your mother gave her life for you. Because your mother sacrificed her love for you. That’s the strongest magic there is. That puts a power on you evil can’t deal with.”

There is no more powerful narrative structure; there is no more incredible moral beauty than that. To not just read about somebody else doing that for somebody else, but to know Jesus Christ came to earth and did that for you, to get you eternal glory and love, that will change the center of your life. The waves of the Red Sea did not come crashing down on you, all the breakers and waves came down upon the Jesus and guarantee your adoption. His rejection on the cross guarantees our adoption. Jesus giving up his inheritance guarantees our inheritance.

Today if fears assail, remember you are adopted. If you are worried about finances and provision, remember you are adopted. If you are anxious about tomorrow, remember you are adopted. Your Father will care for you.

Can a Leopard Change its Spots?

31 Then he summoned Moses and Aaron by night and said, “Up, go out from among my people, both you and the people of Israel; and go, serve the LORD, as you have said. 32 Take your flocks and your herds, as you have said, and be gone, and bless me also!”

Read Exodus 12:29-13:16

In the film Dumbo a flock of crows pose some fun questions. “Have you ever seen a horse fly? Have you ever seen a house fly?” Of course we have, but only due to a play on words.  But we have never seen an elephant fly. It is impossible for elephants to fly, but Dumbo defies our understanding of nature and flies.

By a single swift pronouncement Pharaoh makes Israel free. Israel no longer has to toil under the lash of an oppressor. They may now enjoy the freedom of choice.

Often times we in the modern world define freedom as the ability to choose. It is a virtue to always have our options open and be able to freely choose them. As enticing as this definition of freedom sounds, we may actually be surprised that we are not as free as we think. We all have hidden constraints, our family upbringing, the countries where we were born in, and sometimes just being in the right place at the right time. Most self-respecting people will actually acknowledge that we are preconditioned by our DNA and follow its design. Ironically Richard Dawkins may be right when he asserts, “DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.”

We are only free to be what we were designed to be.

As much as a bald eagle would wish to run like a cheetah, it never will be able to freely choose this. A cheetah may wish to fly like an eagle, but it will never be able to freely choose this.

Can the … the leopard his spots?
Then also you can do good.
     Jer. 13:23

Yes, the leopard can change his spots! The beauty of the Gospel is precisely this: Theology can conquer biology. Grace can override our inherent desire to sin. Our baser instincts may be overruled. We are actually free to choose. We are actually free once again.

We are made in the image of God. God by his nature is completely free and only chooses to do good.  True freedom comes to us by grace. Grace conditions our situations so that we will always freely choose the good. Let us accept Grace and let it transform us. True freedom conditions us to always want to choose good.

Today as you pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” Pray that “God would by his Spirit take away from ourselves and others all blindness, weakness, … and by his grace make us able and willing to know, do, and submit to his will in all things, with the like humility, cheerfulness, faithfulness, diligence, zeal, sincerity, and constancy, as the angels do in heaven.”(Westminster Larger Catechism, Question 192)

Our Lives are His

Exodus 11:5 and every firstborn in the land of Egypt shall die, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sits on his throne, even to the firstborn of the slave girl who is behind the handmill, and all the firstborn of the cattle.

Read Exodus 11:1-10

How many of us have ever travelled to Hawaii? My guess is not many. How many of us know or have known a loved one who has suffered from cancer? My guess is nearly all of us. There is nothing the grants us more solidarity with our fellow humans than our mortality.

Benjamin Franklin once commented, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.” (Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789)

We are now 9 plagues into the story of the exodus. Still Pharaoh will not relent. Somehow privilege, difference, and circumstances prevents the Pharaoh from identifying with the Hebrew slaves and his suffering Egyptians.

Since the beginning of Hebrew scripture we have seen the natural consequence of breaking God’s heart: the breaking of ourselves and our world.

God promises that this processes of mortality can be reversed. He is the Lord of Life. All life belongs to him. He will protect those who acknowledge his Lordship and turn to him. Let’s give up trying to be “lords of life.” It lead to the death of Jesus. “[We] put to death the Lord of life; whom God gave back from the dead; of which fact we are witnesses.”(Acts 3:15)

It is this humble repentance that undoes the bonds of death and creates an new solidarity and a new humanity. There is nothing more liberating than acknowleding that Life belongs to God. As such, he will care for His creation. Whatever pressures or cares face your life today: Remember your life is His. He will protect you.

Let this truth and humility lead to a new solidarity and peace in your life today.

 

No Bully for a Father

 

Read Exodus 7:14-10:29

Every few months we hear of father’s acting unfatherly towards their children. Fathers should protect their kids not mistreat them. Fathers should be loving not bullies. These stories are heart wrenching.  When we read about the God of Moses we see a loving father issuing ten pleas to a stubborn son by the name of Pharaoh.

Many historians point to the “Ipuwer Papyrus” to suggest a possible cataclysmic event in the history of Egypt that might parallel some of the incidents described in the biblical account of the Plagues.

Lo, the river is blood, as one drinks of it one shrinks from people and thirsts for water …
Towns are ravaged, Upper Egypt became a wasteland …
     (“Admonitions of Ipuwer”, M. Lichtheim. 1971–80. Ancient Egyptian Literature. 3 vols. Berkeley)

God is the God who acts decisively in time and space to bring about repentance and redemption.

God gave Pharaoh 10 warnings.

It is possible to read the story of the 10 plagues and mistake them for something they are not. Each was designed not to punish, but to bring about repentance. Often times we hear of them referred to as ten plagues.  Some would prefer to skip over these verses as outmoded and archaic. The excerpt quoted above is a telling part of the whole plague narrative.  It is the seventh of the ten plagues. You can hear the tender entreating of a father to a runaway son.

“Do you not see that as the Almighty I could use my omnipotence and force you to change. But this is not what a Father does. I am entreating you. I am begging you to change.”

Even in this seventh plague of hail and fire. God is giving pharaoh ample warning. The LORD is actually asking Pharaoh to tell the Egyptian people to put their livestock under cover. He desires every human being to protected from the natural consequences of their disobedience.

The LORD would have his world cling to him and take shelter from the storm. Take shelter under the pierced side of the Savior.  Hear this compassionate plea from the God who loves you and redeems you.

Ezek. 33:11 Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?

Pause and reflect on the God of unlimited grace and countless chances for repentance.