This week we will be exploring Exodus 4 together, Making Excuses.
Excuses.
We are pretty good at them.
If we failed to do something that we should have done...or if we don't want to do something that we should do...then you can bet that we can find a pretty good excuse to absolve ourselves or avoid the situation altogether.
It's a human trait that has been with us since mankind fell into sin.
The woman whom You gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree... (Genesis 3:12)
In Exodus 4, Moses continues his conversation with God. God has called him to deliver His people from Egypt...and Moses isn't too fond of the idea.
If God wants to deliver them, why does He need me?
Moses questions God...argues with Him...makes excuses...and tries to wriggle out of the assignment in any way that he can.
He is not too much unlike us. In fact, we can see a lot of ourselves in Moses...if we are willing to be honest.
But God continues to work on Moses until he finally relents to the Lord's will. But Moses' heart is still not in it. And what happens on the way to Egypt is a story that has boggled the minds of interpreters for thousands of years. You won't find it in any children's Bible, or in many sermons for that matter, today. But we'll take a look at it on Sunday. Woohoo!
May God continue to open our eyes to His truth and open our hearts to trust His good, acceptable, and perfect will for our lives.

This week we will be exploring Exodus 3 together, Encountering God.
Has your life ever been interrupted? Have you ever been on a path that suddenly took a quick detour?
For most of us, we like routine. We like knowing where we are going. We like for our lives to match up with our expectations. And we would like for God to agree with our plan and not throw us for a sudden loop.
In Exodus 3, Moses is humming along. His life is not what he expected but he has gotten used to the routine. After forty long years, he is settled...a family man, a hard-working shepherd, a rural country bumpkin.
But then God interrupts his life.
Moses encounters a burning bush out in the middle of the desolate desert and his life would never be the same.
God calls him to the purpose for which He created him, equipped him, prepared him, destined him.
But Moses is not on board...at least not yet.
What Moses needs to see is not his own failures and inadequacy but rather the power and sufficiency of God. The Great I AM. The Eternal One. The Sovereign One. The Holy One. The Ever-Present, Ever-Active, Ever-Sustaining One.
When we face the overwhelming challenges, responsibilities, and difficulties of life, we don't need to be reminded of our weakness. We already feel that. We need to be reminded of the greatness of God.
May God open our eyes to Who He is, fill our minds with His overwhelming greatness, and strengthen our hearts to fulfill His good, perfect, acceptable will for our lives!
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!

This week we will be exploring Exodus 2 together, Crying Out for Redemption.
Most of us are familiar with the story of Moses. We have either seen Charlton Heston in the Ten Commandments or the animated The Prince of Egypt or one of the more recent adaptations of Moses' life.
But surprisingly, as important as Moses is in the history of Israel (and in the history of the world), the Bible only spends 22 verses describing the first 80 years of his life. Wow, that is quite a summary! In the Hebrew language, it is only 300 words. That's about five tweets in the X world.
Though the Bible doesn't give us a ton of the "back story" of Moses' life, it certainly tells us enough.
We learn that he was born in the midst of a genocide, that he had godly, courageous parents, that he was providentially protected and raised in Pharaoh's court, that he was a natural leader and "righter of wrongs," and that he was a fugitive from Egypt who eventually ended up being a family man in Midian.
That in itself is quite a story!
But the Bible doesn't focus on Moses' life because ultimately he is not the hero of the story. Moses, though a natural leader, was also a flawed, impulsive, rejected runaway from trouble. He tried his hand at being a deliverer of his people and it simply did not work. He was a failed leader. He was a defeated man.
But God is going to use this defeated man for the greatest victory in Israel's history.
It is not the man. It is God working through the man that makes all the difference.
May God encourage our hearts as we study the first 80 years of Moses' life and may we be reminded that ultimately it is His power, not our own, that leads to victory and freedom.
A Bible study guide is available, walking step-by-step, verse-by-verse, through Exodus 1-13. Pick up a study guide on Sunday ($5 donation) and join us for this journey!