Perpetually Burning

And the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire from the midst of the bush. So he looked, and behold the bush was burning with fire, but the bush was not consumed. 

Moses was an 80-year-old shepherd working for his father-in-law in the wilderness of Midian. Though he had been raised as the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, those days were long gone. The memories of his youth in Egypt were distant to Moses. He may have had dreams of going back to Egypt and helping his people, but now he was old. In some ways his life must have been hard, and repetitive, and tedious and stressful. It was the life of a shepherd, surrounded by animals that needed food.

Now Moses is confronted by a new challenge, a perpetually burning bush. When he stops to take notice a voice from the bush speaks.. It is God calling him to something new. He has been leading sheep to good land, but now the Lord wants him to lead His people to the Promised Land. The book of Exodus then describes how God uses Moses to deliver Israel out of slavery in Egypt.

What would have happened if Moses had not stopped and looked? What if fear drove him away from the burning bush? This possibility is not described in the passage but we can imagine what would have taken place. Moses would have returned to his life unchanged or worse, wary of God because he didn’t stop to understand what the Lord was trying to communicate to him. Moses would have never received his calling, nor been the great prophet that freed an enslaved people and humbled a mighty nation.

Is there a burning bush in your life? Has God called you to something greater than you could imagine but you whizzed by without stopping because you weren’t comfortable with the possibility of having to change your priorities?  Do you think that opportunity has passed you by and you've missed your chance to make a mark in God's Kingdom?

The bible says, He who has called you is faithful, who also will do it. Remember one thing; God is in that burning bush. Don’t worry that you have ignored it in the past. It burns perpetually. There is always a place to serve in your church. Attend faithfully and draw near to the Word preached. His voice will speak and show you what to do. As it says in the Proverbs,In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your paths.

Scripture references:

Exodus 3:2

1 Thessalonians 5:24

Proverbs 3:5

Why Is God Great?

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 

  The first sentence of the Bible demonstrates how great God is. There is no introduction to God’s character, or explanation of how molecules were fused together, just a statement of fact; God created the heavens and the earth in the beginning.” So the reader has to stop and think about that. All that I see on the earth was created by God. All that I see when I look up to the sky in the day or night time was created by God.

  Not only does the Bible attribute all of creation to an almighty God, but also says that Jesus is upholding and maintaining and guiding and propelling the universe by His mighty word of power. It’s understood, through study, that moment by moment control of everything belongs to God. You may ask yourself, “Considering how busy God is, how can He be concerned about me?” Peter, the Apostle, says we need to cast all our cares upon Jesus because He cares for us. God’s care and interest has always been His people. He loves us, the Bible says, with an everlasting love, and He will never leave you or forsake you.

The heaven and earth we know now will pass away and be no more. God’s original work of creation, the beauty that makes us marvel at God’s greatness and majesty will be gone in an instant, but redeemed men and women will be there in the new heaven and earth because we are the objects of His love. Christ didn’t come to buy back heaven and earth with His blood. He came to buy us back. Heaven and earth, though first in creation, were made to serve us, not the other way around.

  Look at your surroundings today and see all the marvelous things that God has made. After doing that, think of the one thing in the world you consider to be the most important in creation. At this moment and forever, The Everlasting God considers you to be of much greater importance than that one thing. He is great because of His unfailing love for us.

Scripture references

Genesis 1:1

Jeremiah 31:3

Hebrews 13:5

Revelation 21

He Is What We Need

So the people of Israel went out and gathered this food, some getting more, and some getting less. By gathering two quarts for each person, everyone had just enough. Those who gathered a lot had nothing left over, and those who gathered only a little had enough. Each family had just what it needed.

After the nation of Israel had crossed the Red Sea into the wilderness they didn't have the same conveniences they were used to. They were confronted with the fact that they would not have all their physical needs met as they had in Egypt. In Egypt they had everything in the way of food and housing, they had no freedom. According to many of the Hebrews, food in the land of slavery was not an issue. Still, the king wanted to control how many sons you had, how much you worked and what you did for work, along with other worse things. It seemed that some saw the kings rules as a small sacrifice for eating onions and cucumbers.

The mind creates false memories of our past when we feel deprived of something we’re used to. I remember living in a foreign country and at times wondering if I would be better off at home with all of its comforts and conveniences. Israel’s dilemma was that the source for their sustenance had changed from the natural to the supernatural, and they refused to adjust to faith even though they had seen so many wonders that God did through Moses.

“It is hard to teach an old dog new tricks” they say, but Israel was no old dog. It was a new people with hope and a God who desired that they learn to rely on Him for their needs rather than crave the things of the past.

This transition from old to new can be hard for Christians. We come into this life with joy, being torn from the slavery that held us in chains to sin. And after the initial excitement is over we may ask, “What do I do now?” Often people do what Israel did when hard times come. Forgetting the pain of sin they look back, longing for things in their old life.  Paul says this, "but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead."

What we have to do is to be careful not to be led away with the error of the wicked, as were the children of Israel when they complained constantly to Moses about their situation. They looked back and said the slavery that they were freed from was better than their new lives. They refused to do what we must do, which is to grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and savior Jesus Christ. That's when we begin to realize that when we find ourselves in a place of need we ask for God’s help.

Moses told Israel to go out of the camp in the morning and find food on top of the dew on the ground and to gather what was needed for yourself and your family. Later, those who gathered much had none left over, and those who gathered little had plenty.

That is how our heavenly Father takes care of us. The Bible says, My God shall supply all your need according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus.”

Are you ready to trust Him in this new life of liberty? Don’t seek fulfillment the way you used to before you were made free men and women by the new birth. Going back to Egypt for a taste of the good life is a fool's errand. Stop fooling yourself, the onions and cucumbers were never that good! Look what your old life cost you. Remember the pain? Remember the resentment and anger and emptiness? Real contentment must come through trusting in God’s promise to lead us and feed us. "Be satisfied with what you have. For God has said, “I will never fail you, I will never abandon you.” Hebrews 13:5

 Indeed, He is what we need.

Struck By Love

See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!

  When I read this statement by the Apostle John, I imagine him jumping out of his seat with excitement.

  Man has always been the center piece of God’s creation, and we were made sinless. You would think that after the fall of Adam, God would place His affection elsewhere, but He didn't. Everything He did in history, He did for us. Even though we know that, we still lack the desire to do the right things and have good motivation. We tend to be selfish and unconcerned for anything outside of our sphere. It's understandable. Looking at our situation we might say, “Without me in the picture nothing else matters.” This is a true statement for the natural man. We are the center of our life. It’s hard to come to grips with how selfish we are because we tend to think and speak in euphemisms. We're trained to care for  others, even if we don’t all the time. We see images in media of children in faraway places that have needs, and to alleviate our guilt we may sign up to send monthly contributions. I don’t say it's all because of societal blame, but the message can seem to say, “You are self-indulgent and it’s your fault these kids are hungry.” We normally have no problem caring for our own families and friends. Why? Because they mean something to us personally. They are part of our self life. Again the arrow points back to the center of our concern, ourselves. It explains why God says, speaking through Jeremiah, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?"

  We also can have a hard time loving ourselves. We don’t think we deserve love because we remember the bad parts of our past. We think, "It’s only going to get worse." 
 Learning to love ourselves the way God does not only helps us, but it affects our families, our friends, and changes how we see the our neighbors in the world around us.

  John is expressing the love of God in his statement. He realizes, through divine revelation, that he has been adopted into the family of God and now is part of God’s sphere of concern. He's family. He's been struck by God's arrow of love.

  God loves people. His love, in fact, is demonstrated to us in that, while we were still sinners, God sent Jesus, His Son, to cleanse us from our sin through the shedding of his blood. The love John is experiencing is the love of a father towards his son. It's a love that wants to see us succeed. It’s a love that plans good for us while still allowing us to fall and fail and question why things don’t always go the way we hope.

  You are a child of God if you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior. Think of yourself that way. Your position now is that you are a son, a daughter of the Most High. Like John, get excited. Jump out of your chair. Skip down the street and shout praise to your heavenly Father. Then, love yourself just as you are, because that’s how God loves you.

"See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are!"

Scripture references

1 John 3:1

Jeremiah 17:9

Romans 5:8

1 John 3:1