Friday, January 21, 2022
And so, dear brothers and sisters, I
plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the
kind he will find acceptable. This is
truly the way to worship him. Don’t copy the behavior and
customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing
the way you think. Then you will learn
to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. Romans 12:1-2
In writing to the Roman believers,
Paul echoed the heartbeat of Moses, the lawgiver whom God used to set Israel
free. Moses was a man who learned the
hard way (and maybe that’s why I admire the “M” man so much), how to serve and
love God.
Moses wanted, above all, to be on the
right side of history. He had a sense of
justice that got him in trouble with people all the time, but had the stamp of
God’s favor on what he did. Born a
nobody to Israelite parents in captivity to Egypt, Moses was in danger of being
snuffed-out before his first birthday.
So, his mother set him adrift in a floating basket near the place where
the Pharaoh’s daughter bathed. The plan
worked, and Moses Nobody was adopted and raised to
be in the Seat of Power Somebody.
Later, true-to-form, Moses got in trouble
trying to break-up a fight and bring justice, but he was banished from his
“somebody” position to life on the back-side of the dessert. He spent the next 40 years being a
“nobody”.
But God was preparing Moses to serve;
history would see the man born to be a nobody in obscurity, raised to kingly
aspirations of the great somebody kind, exiled to less-than-obscurity, tending
sheep, like an insignificant nobody, who finally became the kind of somebody
who was willing to be a nobody, and could truly be called the friend of
God. It all came about because of what
Paul would later describe as a surrender to God’s
will. Moses turned his back on the
world’s ways, and accepted whatever God would require of him, life, limb, or
reputation…and use every ounce of whatever strength God placed in his hands to
serve the will of his Master.
Coming back to Egypt was what Moses
saw as the test, but the real test was months before, in private, when the nobody
from the Midian Dessert, who was a former somebody of
Pharaoh’s household, took off his shoes in front of a bush that burned without
burning-up, and surrendered to the will of the God who was so big He wasn’t
named by anyone. He just told Moses, I
AM.
Getting on the right side of history
has never meant winding up with the most toys, biggest bank account, or having people
think your short existence on this planet was great. It has everything to do with Who will be
ruling long after this world’s leaders, cultures, current affairs, and
movements are long-forgotten.
For You Today
Moses was driven to find God’s will
for his life, and the man born a nobody, became history’s somebody, because he
was willing to give every bit of who he was in his human body to open his life
to God’s plan.
If that sounds like a plan to get on
the right side of history to you, but it doesn’t describe where you are, or
have been yet, remember, the bush never burned-up. He still speaks, and He still loves, and you
are still wanted.
[1] Title and Other Images: Pixabay.com Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation©
