The Gospel According to Moses DAILY DEVOTIONAL READINGS BY KIM HARRINGTON Week II Day 12: God’s Willingness Now it came about in the course of those many days that the king of Egypt died. And the sons of Israel sighed because of the bondage, and they cried out; and their cry for help because of their bondage rose up to God. 24 So God heard their groaning; and God remembered His covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. 25 God saw the sons of Israel, and God took notice of them. Exodus 2:23-25 God hears the cries and the prayers of His people, and contrary to popular opinion, He doesn’t need a great deal of persuasion to be moved to compassion and begin to act on our behalf. In fact, He is waiting to be able to help us at the soonest possible time. As we read here, He is faithful to His covenant with us, His agreement to aid and assist us, to fight our battles, to provide His blessings for us. In the case of the children of Israel, that covenant was based on promises to Abraham. We in the new covenant also have the promises of Abraham, sealed and guaranteed and enlarged upon through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross. The gap has been bridged between us and God. We have His ear. He wants to help. He has sworn to help, and given exceedingly great and precious promises to that effect in His Word. If there is a delay, it’s most often because of some negligence on our part, some unmet condition, or perhaps our entire spiritual condition. We’re not able to hear His answer and respond to it. Our hearts are in the wrong place. "You have not because you ask not," James explained... You’re not even thinking about God, and any prayers you do offer are not in real faith that He hears and wants to help, but just last resort experimentation. "You ask and receive not because you ask to consume it on your lusts," he went on to say. Your hearts are in the wrong place entirely; you’re not seeking first the kingdom; you look on the Lord as a sugar daddy, not as Master and Savior; you have no respect for Him; you get upset like a spoiled child if He fails to jump at your slightest wish. It’s not a matter of a faith confession or a promise from the Word in these cases – it’s a matter of getting your heart right, of doing a 180 degree turnabout and really living for God. The Israelites weren’t ready to receive deliverance until they had reached a certain stage of desperation. Moses tried to get them to stand on their hind legs and resist the Egyptians forty years earlier, and received no thanks for his efforts. They weren’t ready for deliverance; their conditions had to be worsened before they would really cry out for freedom. Even when the Lord sent him with Aaron to explain the plan of the Exodus it took a lot of persuading, and at the first sign of delay and opposition their faith faltered again. Moses and Aaron were on their own after that until the Passover. And ever afterward the Israelites showed the same reluctance to believe God and walk with Him. Any small discouragement could throw them completely off track again. The fact is that God delivered them at the soonest possible moment; He didn’t wait until they had reached some place of overcoming faith; He actually took them out when they were quite unprepared for deliverance, hoping to carve them into a believing people along the way. In the final analysis He was unable to bring them into the promised land, but not because He didn’t try, and not because He was difficult to persuade. God is always ready; it’s man that keeps the prayer answers from flowing.
Posted on: Fri, 06 Sep 2013 11:36:30 +0000
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