Moses: Forward by Faith

Moses, an unknown and lowly shepherd, stood before Pharaoh and ordered the most powerful ruler on earth (at the time) to release the Israelites. The confrontation must have seemed a ridiculous spectacle, even to the slaves Moses had been sent by God to rescue. But finally after 10 plagues and numerous dealings with the Egyptian leader, Moses brought the country to it's knees with a simple shepherd's staff and his faith in God.

We have our own personal Pharaohs, each of us being enslaved by a power more often than not, more powerful than ourselves. Moses died and was buried thousands of years ago so who will empower us to stand before our Pharaohs today? The same One that Moses trusted. He's the same God. The only God. He will put Himself up against our Pharaohs, no matter how big and bad they are, and free us from captivity. We meet up with a lot of Pharaoh's but our biggest dictator, (causing us the most problems), is our Sin Pharaoh. It's a scary situation because we know we don't have a big bag of plagues to cast out against our Pharaohs. It's just us and our God. Will we stand firm? Can we stand firm? How big is your faith?

Choosing to walk by faith instead of living on the basis of feelings, opinions, and higher "logic" often means we are misunderstood by those around us. Sometimes our actions may appear unreasonable to the outside world (and, truthfully, sometimes even to ourselves), but what could be more logical, more reasonable, than us allowing our all-knowing, all-wise, all-everything heavenly Father to guide us? When we are like Moses and find our talents and abilities are no match for the task at hand, God's power will accomplish through us what needs to be done (2Co 12:9). The Lord God isn't always "reasonable" as we may interpret reason, but He works out our circumstances through our obedience. And we can be confident that He who used a mere shepherd to challenge a mighty Pharaoh is still as trustworthy for us as He was for Moses. He will stand just as strong and unmovable today as He did all those many years ago. Times have changed, but we keep meeting up with the same Pharaohs. And luckily, we still have the same God. He will stand against our Pharaohs and we will come out victorious just as Moses did. Our God is dependable. We can count on our God. He has promised on Himself (for there is nothing higher to swear by) to stand His ground. Today we may not have a Moses to go against our Pharaohs but we have Jesus, our High Priest (He 2:17-18; 4: 14-5). Hebrews 4:16 reads, "Let us, then, approach the throne of grace with confidence." We can be absolutely positive that Jesus will always be there to face our Pharaohs for us. He is the ultimate and faithful High Priest able to sympathize with our weaknesses, having been tempted in every way, just as we are, only without sin. We have Someone more powerful than Moses.

Living by faith requires releasing our human sense of what is best and reasonable in order to rely wholly on God ... it involves obeying when the Lord indicates we are to speak or to act. God wants us to trust that He has a plan for our lives and is constantly directing circumstances to ensure that His purpose is achieved. Whatever the challenge, we can be successful by choosing to depend entirely upon God. He will stand us up before our personal Pharaohs and make us victorious.

This morning has been interesting. I can't seem to get my devotional to gel. It won't coalesce but I'm hoping you will get something out of it. It just seemed to want to go in too many directions today. So if you find that today's blog is more confusing than usual, please know that I struggled with it.

We had another cold night last night but not freezing. I'm cold and I want to turn on the heater but Michael is still sleeping and it gets too hot in the bedroom with the heater running. So I sit here and shiver! I woke up at 5:00 again this morning. That's getting to be a habit with me. Oh well, I enjoy having the extra time to get things done. I don't usually finish my blog until around noon so I'm like 5 hours ahead of myself. Of course with Michael still being asleep I haven't been able to get my chores done like I'm supposed to before I start blogging. Oh well ... that just breaks my heart, he he!

I think I have a meeting to go to this afternoon. I should probably find out for sure from someone but I'll wait and let the world wake up first. I know I have a meeting tonight and I'm going to go back to my exercise class tomorrow night. And I have a meeting Thursday night.

Betty is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, away from home so everyone please keep her in your prayers. http://skatemama/. blogspot.com is always fun to read. It's always fun to check out her latest pictures and read what the kids have been up to. Kathleen, my Heart from church, has been on a vacation in Arizona for the past week or so but she's been taking me with her via email and photos. It's been a lot of fun. Chris and Brenda's wedding is this coming Saturday. That should be fun. I haven't been to a wedding in close to 20 years. Brenda is very nervous about getting up in front of everyone to say her vows so please pray for her that she might have peace and nothing but good memories of her wedding day. Jenn is still struggling to get enough women to come to the exercise class to make it pay for her expenses so pray for her too, that she might be a peace no matter what happens with the class. Please pray for our church as we head into the 40 Days of Purpose Campaign that we would have a huge success for God and great spiritual growth as a congregation.

Well, I'm going to go back and proofread my blog and see if it even makes sense today. If it's too bad, I'll have to rewrite it so keep your fingers crossed that it'll be okay. Just a little confusing. [I've decided to go with my blog as written. Hope you can get something out of it.]