Our Musicalhouse: BSF

Friday, May 15, 2009

Moses

I just finished a study of the life of Moses I started last fall with BSF. The study went through Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers & Deuteronomy. It was the first time I had read a lot of those books & I learned a LOT. One thing I've learned is that I need to be more intentional about recording the things God is teaching me & the work he is doing in my life. Like the Israelites, I so easily forget the things God has done for me. I forget how faithful He is & the countless ways He blesses my life each and every day. I figured this is a good place to record this kind of stuff, so here we go... Moses had a hard life. I know, duh. But when you look at him as a leader & how much he went through with the Israelites(who seem to be slow learners, like myself), you start to wonder how he was so patient. After 9 months of walking his journey through the scriptures I think the thing that struck me most was the end of it all. Moses spent much of his life teaching & leading the Israelites. He devoted everything to this calling. So when you get close to the end of Deuteronomy when Moses is coming to the end of his long journey, God basically tells him that the Israelites are going to turn away from God (again) once Moses is gone. Reading that made me hurt for the poor guy. I thought - what the heck? He spent his whole life leading these people & basically he gets nothing for it??? Did he ever wonder if his whole life was futile? He didn't get to enter the promised land, & he didn't even get the satisfaction of knowing that everything was going to be ok with these people that he had investing in for so many years. I really wanted some sort of glorious ending for him. But God knew better. And I bet Moses did too. In Deuteronomy 34 Moses dies, and in verse 10, God put it all in perspective for me: "Since then, no prophet has risen in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face." Face to face. Can you imagine that kind of closeness with God? Moses may not have gotten a bunch of earthly rewards - pats on the back, thank you cards, or even the satisfaction of " a successful ministry" all the time - but He got to know God face to face. He got to walk and talk with the creator of everything, the Alpha and Omega, the one and only God. Is there anything better than that?

Verses from Philippians

1:21: For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.
2:1-11: If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
2:14-15: Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation, in which you shine like stars in the universe.
3:7-8: But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ.
3:12-14:Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.