Tag Archive | Exodus

Exodus 24 – Free access to the Throne Room

Feb5
Good Afternoon y’all. Today we are looking at Exodus 24.
This chapter is pretty awesome as we see Moses, Aaron, Nadab, Abihu and some of the elders of Israel see God and even dine with Him! It doesn’t get any better than this: dining with the Almighty God himself 🙂
I was particularly struck by verse 1 and 2 where God asked them to come up the mountain and meet with Him.
“Then the Lord instructed Moses: “Come up here to me, and bring along Aaron, Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of Israel’s elders. All of you must worship from a distance. Only Moses is allowed to come near to the Lord. The others must not come near, and none of the other people are allowed to climb up the mountain with him.” (Exo 24: 1-2 NLT)
It’s interesting that only Moses was allowed to get close to God. All the other prophets and elders could only worship God from a distance. Thank God for the sacrifice that Jesus paid on the cross of Calvary, we can now come boldly into God’s Presence.
throne room
“Because of Christ and our faith in him, we can now come boldly and confidently into God’s presence”. (Eph 3:12 NLT)
“So then, since we have a great High Priest who has entered heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to what we believe. This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. So let us come boldly to the throne of our gracious God. There we will receive his mercy, and we will find grace to help us when we need it most”.(Heb 4:14-16 NLT)
The veil has been torn apart. We no longer have to worship from a distance. (Hallelujah !!!!)
“And so, dear brothers, now we may walk right into the very Holy of Holies, where God is, because of the blood of Jesus. This is the fresh, new, life-giving way that Christ has opened up for us by tearing the curtain—his human body—to let us into the holy presence of God”.(Heb 10:19-20 TLB)
God is here and living in us. We have full 24/7 access to him. We don’t need to go via a priest or prophet, we can approach God ourselves, through His Son Jesus. How awesome is this? The holy and magnificent God has made a way for us to enter freely and lounge in His presence…that’s absolutely mind blowing!!! Yet, some of us don’t take advantage of the free invite. We don’t like spending time with God. We would rather someone else do it on our behalf.
God is interested in having a personal relationship with us. He has extended the free invite to us, but it’s now up to us to accept the invite.
In Revelations 3:20 God says: “Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends”.(NLT)
Today, let’s take advantage of Gods invite and spend time in HIS Presence.
“You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore”.(Psalms 16:11 NKJV)
Prayer: 
Dear Lord we thank you for Today. We thank you for sending Jesus to die for us. Thank you that we can now come boldly into Your presence. We ask, Lord, that we may dwell in Your presence and gaze upon Your beauty all the days of our lives. Thank You, dear Lord. In Jesus Name we pray. Amen.
Thanks for joining today.
Have a wonderful day 🙂

 

Exodus 14

Jan22

Good morning y’all. Today we are looking at Exodus 14.

Be blessed 🙂

From the 1st four verses of the chapter, we see that for everything God asks us to do, there is always a purpose – For His name to be glorified. God told Moses the purpose why he asked them to turn back. He wants his glory to be displayed and for Pharaoh and the Egyptians to see that He is the Lord (Yahweh): the one who own everything, who rules and reigns over the affairs of men.

In verse10, the people panicked when they saw Pharaoh approaching. To the people, it seemed as though God commanded them to leave and now it seems the enemy is going to succeed and kill them. At that point, it felt like God had deserted them or perhaps they started doubting if God was truly the One who told them to leave Egypt.

This is true for most of us. God asks us to do something, we do it but there are challenges on the way and we start to doubt whether it was God who called us or we just called ourselves.

We need to understand that God doesn’t promise that the road to the promised land will be easy with no pain at all. What He promised was that we will definitely make it to the promised land and that He will be with us. And we know God never lies so if He has said it, then let’s believe that even in the midst of the obstacles He is able to deliver us. (The invitation we are given is found in Matt 11:29-30; the reality we should expect is found in John 15:18; and the confidence we have is found John 16:33.)

The Israelites had seen God take them out of Egypt without them having to fight. He had been with them from the day they left as the cloud and fire. It seems to me that they didn’t recognise His presence with them.  I ask myself, if they did, why then did they start to panic when they saw Pharaoh and his chariots approaching? Was it that they thought God wasn’t able to deliver them from Pharaoh this time around?

I’m reminded of the disciples when they were in the boat with Jesus and the storm came. Jesus was sleeping in the boat during the storm. Notice He was in the boat with them but asleep. The disciples started to panic and went to wake Jesus up saying, ‘Lord, save us!’.

“Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples. Suddenly, a fierce storm struck the lake, with waves breaking into the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him up, shouting, “Lord, save us! We’re going to drown!”.(Matthew 8:23-25 NLT)

These are men that have seen Jesus perform miracles. Yet in the midst of the storm they panicked even with Jesus present in their boat. They didn’t fully understand the power of the One who was asleep in their boat.

Same can be said of some of us. The cares of this world has so distracted us that we do not even see God’s hand or presence in our lives and when the storms start to rage we panic. Jesus responded to their cry for help.

“Jesus responded, “Why are you afraid? You have so little faith!” Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and suddenly there was a great calm. The disciples were amazed. “Who is this man?” they asked. “Even the winds and waves obey him!” (Matthew 8:26-27 NLT)

The latter part of verse 10 tells us the Israelites cried out to God.
” …..They cried out to the lord” (Exodus 14:10 NLT)

At least they knew to turn to God for help. Who do we turn to when things get out of hand in our lives? Do we turn to our friends, pastor, bank accounts or parents?.

Verses 11 and 12 suggests the Israelites would have rather remained slaves in Egypt than be free. It’s like they still didn’t know or understand the God they serve. God had worked miracles and yet at the first sign of trouble they are thinking of going back to Egypt and lamenting. It’s like they’ve already forgotten about God and his mighty power.

Let’s see God response through Moses to them.

“But Moses told the people, “Don’t be afraid. Just stand still and watch the Lord rescue you today. The Egyptians you see today will never be seen again. The Lord himself will fight for you. Just stay calm.” (Exodus 14:13-14 NLT)

Stand still and see your God. That is, God is saying to them I don’t need you to do anything. I have all the power in my hands. All you need to do is be still and watch Me fight this one for you. All these enemies you see today, you will see them no more

I believe God is saying those same words to us today. Whatever challenges come our way, we don’t need to panic, we need to hand it over to him in prayer and thanksgiving and watch him come through for us. Philippians 4:6 tells us not to be anxious about anything but to pray about everything.
“Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He has done”.(Philippians 4:6 NLT)

I love verse 15. This is my version of it – why are you sitting down feeling dejected and crying all over the place? Come on! Get up! Start moving: start doing what I have asked you to do. Yes there are obstacles on the way, but you keep doing and moving towards what I have told you to do and you will see me clear the obstacles for you.

Notice if the children of Israel didn’t move, they would have been killed by pharaoh and also they would not have seen the Red sea part. All we need to do is take the 1st step and God will sort out the rest for us. I once heard someone say faith is taking the first step even when you cannot see the staircase.

So the Red sea parted and the children of Isreal walked through dry ground. Pharaoh’s army tried to go in with them. God has a great sense of humor: He twisted the chariot wheels 🙂 and set confusion into the enemies camp…lol. At this stage, the Egyptians finally agreed it’s time to turn back because God is fighting for Israel but by then it was too late for them, for the Lord caused the waters to drown them.

Today, our enemies will turn back because they will see that God is fighting for us. Romans 8 says: “What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” (Romans 8:31 NLT)

Prayer:
Dear Lord thank you for today. Thanks for all the wonderful things you have done for us. May we always be in awe of your majesty.  Today, we ask you help us not to be anxious but bring all our problems to you knowing you are able to help us with them and give us grace to step out in faith into all that you have prepared for us. Thank you Lord. In Jesus Name we prayed. Amen.

Thanks for joining. Please feel free to share your thoughts on the chapter 🙂

Have a blessed day 🙂

***With God all things are possible***