Tag: Obedience

Morning Musing: Exodus 4:1

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“Moses answered, ‘What if they won’t believe me and will not obey me but say, “The Lord did not appear to you”?'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

One of the bumper sticker truisms about the Christian faith that sometimes gets thrown around is that whatever God calls us to, He equips us for. That process, however, is not always direct and smooth, and sometimes – especially if we don’t want to do it – we can be rather reluctant recipients of His help. Moses fits rather spectacularly into this category. In the first part of chapter four here, we find Moses trying to get out of what God was sending him to do. What we see here is not the great man of faith we know him to be, but who he was before that. Moses tries three times to get out of what God wants him to do. Let’s look at each of these in turn this week, starting with this first one.

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Morning Musing: Luke 1:35-38

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“The angel replied to her, ‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. Therefore, the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. And consider your relative Elizabeth – even she has conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month for her who was called childless. For nothing will be impossible with God.’ ‘See, I am the Lord’s servant.’ said Mary. ‘May it happen to me as you have said.’ Then the angel left her.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

A huge part of preparing for Jesus’ arrival means preparing ourselves for Him to do things that only God can do. In saying that, I don’t just mean we must prepare ourselves intellectually for His acting in unexpected or unbelievable ways. We need to prepare ourselves to join Him in those actions. We must prepare ourselves for a life of total obedience rooted in faith. Without that, we aren’t going to experience much of anything He wants to do. This kind of willingness is what started Jesus’ whole journey on earth. Let’s talk about it this morning.

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Digging in Deeper: John 8:31-32

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“Then Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, ‘If you continue in my word, you really are my disciples. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.'” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Sometimes the thing you see first isn’t the only thing to see. I had a puzzle book growing up where you had to find things hidden on each page, and use those things to solve a bigger mystery. Everything was there to see, but you had to spend a fair bit of time taking in each picture if you were going to see it. Once you saw it, you couldn’t miss it, but until then it might as well have been invisible. The Scriptures can be kind of like that sometimes. Everything we need to see is right there in the words, but some of it takes more time than others to find. This passage represents one of those places. Let’s talk about it.

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Morning Musing: Hebrews 12:2

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“…keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (CSB – Read the chapter)

Think for a minute about the last time you had to do something you really didn’t want to do. How was that experience for you? Enjoyable? Boring? Unbearably awful? How did it leave you feeling afterwards? Were you glad you did it? Were you grateful it was over? Did you regret you had to give any of your precious time to it? Sometimes in life we have to do things that aren’t our first choice. Occasionally they are our last choice. And then there are times we face the prospect of doing that and God is the one leading us to do it. Not wanting to do something God has called us to do may bring guilt – especially in light of what we see in this verse – but let’s take a look at it this morning because there’s something here we don’t want to miss.

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Morning Musing: Mark 14:15-16

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“He will show you a large room upstairs, furnished and ready. Make the preparations for us there.” So the disciples went out, entered the city, and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the Passover.”
— ‭‭Mark‬ ‭14:15-16‬‬ (CSB – Read the chapter)

I remember being given a worksheet to do when I was in an elementary summer school program years ago. I’m pretty sure it’s still around today. At a glance, it is a pretty simple worksheet. There are twenty instructions students are to follow. As soon as the list is complete, they may turn it in. The kick is, the instructions all seem pretty weird. None of them are difficult. There are short math problems, instructions to count out loud, easy geography questions, and the like. At the very top of the page, though, is one other instruction. In fact, it is the only instruction on the page. It says to read everything first, and then get started. That seems innocuous enough, but most students don’t follow it. You can tell because only one or two students walk up to the front of the room and hand their paper in almost immediately. They do this because the last problem gives a simple command: As soon as you read this, take this paper back to your teacher, you are finished. Students who followed the instructions carefully had a much easier road than those who didn’t. In another odd little episode between Jesus and His disciples here, we find a reminder of this same truth.

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