Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Unfailing Love – Always Guiding In Strength


Moses’ and Miriam’s prayer to God:
“In your unfailing love you will lead
the people you have redeemed.
In your strength you will guide them
to your holy dwelling.”
~Exodus 15:13 (NIV).
How far we’ve now come... in Jesus. That “holy dwelling” is now the physical body that houses the Holy Spirit. We’re at the holy dwelling place—yet most of us don’t even realise it or live that way, making the most of that terrific living advantage God’s now blessed us with.
Bold Leadership Always Looks Higher
Moses never claims credit in leadership. Do we notice that in our reading of the Pentateuch?
The boldness that he brought to the activity of his leading for the Lord—Yahweh’s Divine leadership; Moses the great ‘facilitator’ on the journey to the Promised Land—is founded in his credit-returning method, to and for his God.
The facilitator here is truly the leader of the people, but only ever a channel for God.
True leaders are channels for a higher calling, a purpose so intrinsically beyond themselves as persons. And the thing is we are all leaders.
God’s Strength is Magnificent
To just simply read through The Song of Moses and Miriam is to taste what it must have been like to experience the mighty strength of God—literally, fuelling the miracles in Egypt and, in the then now, beyond.
The people of God—Yahweh’s Israel—had been fantastically and fanatically rescued, and it is certainly beyond the comprehension of those mere human beings. But, undoubtedly it fed their faith... well, for a little while.
We know the rest of the story through Exodus and it doesn’t make for pretty reading; the common nature of our humanity is to trample all over God’s will—as they did so frequently.
Nonetheless, God’s strength for us, when we rest in and do God’s will, is magnificent.
God’s Strength is For Us and Not Against Us
This is a great truth to rely on.
Those against God—the Edom’s, Moab’s, and Canaan’s of today—will be terrified; they will be seized with fear and trembling; they will melt away. We see this in life all the time; some people’s lives are dominated by fear.
Even Christians are not protected from this according to their disobedience of God’s will for their situations. God cannot bless a disobedient Christian any more than God can bless a disobedient non-Christian.
For the only true strength of life is the strength of the Lord God Almighty. Those who will be for God, intuiting and doing God’s will, are given copious strength—and this strength is beyond even their own understanding.
God is seen here to be for us, and not against us. So, let us do God’s momentary will.
And this is how we will receive God’s unfailing love.
© 2010 S. J. Wickham.

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