Exodus 3:1-15

How do you respond when God tells you to do something that seems beyond your capabilities? Are you full of excuses, giving Him reasons why He picked the wrong person? That’s exactly how Moses responded. When the Lord gave him the gigantic task of leading the Israelites to freedom, He was calling Moses to a significantly higher level of commitment. If we hope to step obediently into our God-given challenges, we must answer the same questions Moses asked.

Who is God? This answer is important because it determines the authority of the One telling us what to do. The two names the Lord used–the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob (v. 6) and “I am who I am” (v. 14)–identified Him as the sovereign Creator and self-existent, everlasting One who keeps His promises. This means there is no higher authority, and He has every right to command our obedience.

Who am I? When Moses questioned whether he was the right man for the job, the Lord gave him a promise: “Certainly, I will be with you” (v. 12). The man was able to fulfill the assignment only because God chose to enter into a relationship with him. The Christian’s source of adequacy is his or her relationship with Christ and the presence of His indwelling Holy Spirit.

When God gives you a tough assignment, remember that as your Creator, He has designed specific tasks for you to achieve. If you refuse to obey, you’ll miss what He has planned for your life. Just think what Moses would have forfeited had he said no. Too much is at stake. Trust God and go!

In a special documentary, a major television network investigated the beginnings of Christianity and the influence of the apostle Paul in spreading the message of Christ. The narrator noted his fascination with the historical figure, commenting that if not for the voice of Paul, it is “unlikely that the movement Jesus founded would have survived beyond the first century.” Yet of the resurrection of Christ he also noted, “Something must have happened, otherwise it’s hard to explain how Jesus’s story endured for so long.” 

 Why has the story of Christ endured? Has it survived through the centuries because of effective speakers in antiquity? Has it endured, as Sigmund Freud argued, because it is a story that fulfills wishes, or as Friedrich Nietzsche attested, because it masks and medicates our disgust of life? Has the story of Christ endured because something really happened after Jesus’s body was taken down from the Cross or was it only the clever marketing of ardent followers? 

 We live in an age where religion is examined with the goal of finding a religion, or a combination of religions, that best suits our lives and lifestyles. We are intrigued by characters in history like Jesus and Paul, Buddha and Gandhi. We look at their lives and rightly determine their influence in history—the radical life and message of Christ, the fervor with which Paul spread the story of Christianity, the passion of Buddha, the social awareness of Gandhi. But far too often, our fascination stops there, comfortably and confidently keeping the events of history at a distance or mingling them all together as one and the same.  

 C.S. Lewis wrote often of “the great cataract of nonsense” that blinds us to knowledge of earlier times and keeps us content with history in pieces. He was talking about the common tendency to treat the voices of history with a certain level of incredulity and inferiority—even if with a pleasant curiosity all the same. Elsewhere, he called it chronological snobbery, a tendency to concern oneself primarily with present sources while dissecting history as we please. Yet to do so, warned Lewis, is to walk unaware of the cataracts through which we see the world today. Far better is the mind that truly considers the past, allowing its lessons to interact with the army of voices that battle for our allegiance. For a person who has lived thoroughly in many eras is far less likely to be deceived by the errors of his or her own age. 

 We must be wary, then, among other things, of assuming the earliest followers of Christ thought resurrection a reasonable phenomenon or miracles a natural occurrence. They didn’t. Investigating the life of Paul, we might ask why a once fearful persecutor of Christ’s followers was suddenly willing to die for the story he carried around the world, testifying to this very event that split history. Investigating the enduring story of Christ, we might ask why the once timid and frightened disciples were abruptly transformed into bold witnesses. What happened that led countless Jews and many others to dramatically change directions in life and in lifestyle? That something incredible happened is not a difficult conclusion at which to arrive. It takes far greater faith to conclude otherwise. 

 A friend of mine is fond of saying that truth is something you can hang your hat on. Even as we struggle to see it today, her words communicate a reality Jesus’s disciples knew well. The resurrection was shocking in its real-ness; it was an event they found dependable and enduring. It was not for them like the latest scandal that grabs our curiosity and passes with the next big thing. It is solid and it is real. The disciples and the apostle Paul were transformed by seeing Jesus alive again—a phenomenon that would be just as unthinkable to ancient minds as it would be for us today. In fact, even the most hesitant among them, and the most unlikely of followers, found the resurrected Christ an irrefutable reality. Comfort was irrelevant, it went far beyond curiosity, and personal preference was not a consideration. They could not deny who stood in front of them. Jesus was alive. And they went to their deaths talking about it. 

 It seems to me that the story of Christ has endured for innumerable reasons: because in the fullness of time God indeed sent his Son; because knowingly Jesus walked to the Cross and into the hands of those who didn’t know what they were doing; because something really happened after his body was laid in the tomb; and because with great power and with God’s Spirit, the apostles continued to testify of the events they saw. What if the story of Christ remains today simply because it is true?

 Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

Morning “And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed
wherein the sick of the palsy lay.” / Mark 2:4

Faith is full of inventions. The house was full, a crowd blocked up the door,
but faith found a way of getting at the Lord and placing the palsied man
before him. If we cannot get sinners where Jesus is by ordinary methods we
must use extraordinary ones. It seems, according to Luke 5:19, that a tiling
had to be removed, which would make dust and cause a measure of danger to
those below, but where the case is very urgent we must not mind running some
risks and shocking some proprieties. Jesus was there to heal, and therefore
fall what might, faith ventured all so that her poor paralysed charge might
have his sins forgiven. O that we had more daring faith among us! Cannot we,
dear reader, seek it this morning for ourselves and for our fellow-workers,
and will we not try today to perform some gallant act for the love of souls
and the glory of the Lord.

The world is constantly inventing; genius serves all the purposes of human
desire: cannot faith invent too, and reach by some new means the outcasts who
lie perishing around us? It was the presence of Jesus which excited victorious
courage in the four bearers of the palsied man: is not the Lord among us now?
Have we seen his face for ourselves this morning? Have we felt his healing
power in our own souls? If so, then through door, through window, or through
roof, let us, breaking through all impediments, labour to bring poor souls to
Jesus. All means are good and decorous when faith and love are truly set on
winning souls. If hunger for bread can break through stone walls, surely
hunger for souls is not to be hindered in its efforts. O Lord, make us quick
to suggest methods of reaching thy poor sin-sick ones, and bold to carry them
out at all hazards.

Evening “There is sorrow on the sea; it cannot be quiet.” / Jeremiah 49:23

Little know we what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in
our quiet chamber, but far away on the salt sea the hurricane may be cruelly
seeking for the lives of men. Hear how the death fiends howl among the
cordage; how every timber starts as the waves beat like battering rams upon
the vessel! God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! My prayer goes up to
the great Lord of sea and land, that he will make the storm a calm, and bring
you to your desired haven! Nor ought I to offer prayer alone, I should try to
benefit those hardy men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done
anything for them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up
the mariner! Thousands of corpses lie where pearls lie deep. There is
death-sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the long wail of widows and
orphans. The salt of the sea is in many eyes of mothers and wives. Remorseless
billows, ye have devoured the love of women, and the stay of households. What
a resurrection shall there be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives
up her dead! Till then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with
the woes of earth, the sea is forever fretting along a thousand shores,
wailing with a sorrowful cry like her own birds, booming with a hollow crash
of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with hoarse wrath, or
jangling with the voices of ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the
sea may be joyous to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow the wide,
wide ocean is even more forlorn than the wide, wide world. This is not our
rest, and the restless billows tell us so. There is a land where there is no
more sea–our faces are steadfastly set towards it; we are going to the place
of which the Lord hath spoken. Till then, we cast our sorrows on the Lord who
trod the sea of old, and who maketh a way for his people through the depths
thereof.

They are troubled like the sea that cannot be quiet.   Jeremiah 49:23

 We are unaware of what sorrow may be upon the sea at this moment. We are safe in our quiet room, but far away out to sea the hurricane may be cruelly seeking the lives of men. Imagine the bitter winds howling through the rigging, the timbers heaving as the waves beat like battering rams upon the boat! God help you, poor drenched and wearied ones! I am praying to the great Lord of sea and land, that He will make the storm calm and bring you to your desired haven! I ought not simply to pray; I should try to help those brave men who risk their lives so constantly. Have I ever done anything for them? What can I do? How often does the boisterous sea swallow up the sailor!

Thousands have died where pearls lie deep. There is sorrow on the sea, which is echoed in the sad lament of widows and orphans. The salt of the sea is in the eyes of many mothers and wives. Relentless billows, you have devoured the love of women and the strength of households. What a resurrection there will be from the caverns of the deep when the sea gives up her dead!

Until then there will be sorrow on the sea. As if in sympathy with the woes of earth, the sea is always fretting along a thousand shores, wailing with a sorrowful cry, booming with a hollow crash of unrest, raving with uproarious discontent, chafing with hoarse rage, or jangling with the voices of ten thousand murmuring pebbles. The roar of the sea may be glorious to a rejoicing spirit, but to the son of sorrow, the wide, wide ocean is even more forlorn than the wide, wide world. This is not our comfort, and the restless billows tell us so. There is a land where there is no more sea—our faces are firmly set toward it; we are going to the place of which the Lord has spoken. Until then we cast our sorrows on the Lord who walked upon the sea of old and who makes a way for His people through the depths.

Family Reading Plan   Ezekiel 10   Psalm 49