My family had piled into the car headed into town for Wednesday night Bible study just like every other Wednesday evening. As we were almost halfway to town, I noticed a car beginning to pull out from a stop sign to my left. Very quickly I realized not only was the car trying to cross in front of me but it was not in a hurry. Responding to the brake pedal, the pressure from my foot sent the brakes from moderate force to punching the pedal to the floor, bringing us to a screeching halt on the highway. At this time I had lain on my horn, to which the car didn't even seem to acknowledge my presence. By the time the vehicle came to a complete stop, there were only a few feet between us and the other vehicle. After being noticeably shaken from the incident, we proceeded on into town to the West 7th church house. What happens when you go when you're not supposed to go? In this case a wreck almost happened. That vehicle that pulled out in front of us was not supposed to go; they should have waited until our vehicle was clear before it proceeded forward.
This incident gave me the perfect illustration for my devotional talk last night. I was already planning on addressing the text from Numbers 14:39-45. After struggling with how I wanted to illustrate it, the clear answer hit me (almost literally) on the way into town by means of this near automobile accident. The Israelites wanted to go when they weren't supposed to go. Here's the background behind the text.
At the end of chapter thirteen, Joshua and Caleb had given favorable reports of the Promised Land; however, the other ten spies gave bad reports telling the people they would not be able to occupy the land because of the large people who inhabited it. Because of the bad reports, the people grumbled against Moses and Aaron in chapter fourteen. On through the chapter, God is very upset with Israel wanting to destroy them because of their disobedience, unbelief, grumbling, etc. Moses talks God out of that idea, but He states that they will not get to enter the Promised Land because of their behavior. However, their children would get to enter the land along with Joshua and Caleb. God decides to make another point to the Israelites by striking the ten spies with a plague, killing them.
God had told them through Moses that they could not go into the Promised Land. The Israelites mourned, but they decided they were going up to the Promised Land anyway. Three observations I would like to make from this text:
1 -We need to listen to the instructions from the Lord
They didn't pay any attention to what the Lord said. We need to follow the Lord's instructions today, and they're given to us through His Word (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
2 - Warnings are meant to be heeded
Moses tried to warn the people that God would not be with them if they went up to the Promised Land and they would be struck down, but they wouldn't listen. We need to heed warnings as given by the Lord in Scripture (Heb. 2:1-4).
3 - We see what happens when people walk away from God
The Israelites went up to the heights of the hill country but the Lord's presence was not with them. The ark of the covenant and Moses stayed behind in the camp. The Israelites turned their back on God, and they were defeated by the Amalekites and Canaanites. There is no victory for us if God is not with us (1 Jn. 5:4).
Remember the words of the song "If Jesus is with me I'll go anywhere." Just make sure the Lord is with you before you go!
Showing posts with label moses. Show all posts
Showing posts with label moses. Show all posts
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
I Can Do It All By Myself!
"I can do it all by myself!" Have you ever heard these words before, possibly from a child who is very independent? There are many times in life when we think we can handle everything on our own, whether it be job-related, church-related or otherwise. It's great if you can tackle many projects at once, but is it always best?
Delegation is the word that comes to mind with this particular subject. Hesitation is also another word that comes to mind, because so often we hesitate to delegate! Why is it that we are hesitant to pass things off to others to keep us from being bogged down and becoming inefficient? It seems that pride and fear keep us from delegation: pride because we want to show people we can accomplish the task and fear because we don't want to look like a failure for saying we need someone else to do it.
Consider the church. The role of servants (which I believe eventually developed into the role of deacons as described in 1 Tim. 3) came about as a result of the daily distribution of food needs which were threatening to take the apostles away from what they really needed to be doing. They needed to focus their efforts on prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). It wasn't that the apostles didn't have the abilities to do this, rather it was that they needed to let someone else do it so they could fulfill their roles as apostles. This is called delegation, giving others responsibility to perform a certain task, and in turn it gets them involved in the work of the church. Though we don't have apostles among us today, the elders of the church should focus on the spiritual aspect of shepherding by delegating other areas of work to the deacons.
Go way back in time with me to see one of the earliest examples of delegation. Moses had a lot of responsibility placed on his shoulders in leading the Israelites out of Egypt. There was a point in time where he not only was a prophet, but he was also acting as a judge to determine the outcome of disputes between the people (Ex. 18:13ff). When his father-in-law, Jethro saw what was happening by these judgments taking up so much of Moses' time, he told Moses "what you are doing is not good" (17). This not only was taking too much time but it was going to wear everybody out. Jethro recommended a plan of action that would allow Moses to appoint others to judge the cases of the people, but Moses would be consulted when there were hard matters upon which to decide. Because of the advice of Jethro, Moses was able to delegate and therefore take a heavy burden off of his back, per se.
Never be afraid to delegate some task to someone else. Let go of the pride and/or fear that might cause you to help get someone else involved in the Lord's work. Delegate - don't hesitate!
Delegation is the word that comes to mind with this particular subject. Hesitation is also another word that comes to mind, because so often we hesitate to delegate! Why is it that we are hesitant to pass things off to others to keep us from being bogged down and becoming inefficient? It seems that pride and fear keep us from delegation: pride because we want to show people we can accomplish the task and fear because we don't want to look like a failure for saying we need someone else to do it.
Consider the church. The role of servants (which I believe eventually developed into the role of deacons as described in 1 Tim. 3) came about as a result of the daily distribution of food needs which were threatening to take the apostles away from what they really needed to be doing. They needed to focus their efforts on prayer and the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4). It wasn't that the apostles didn't have the abilities to do this, rather it was that they needed to let someone else do it so they could fulfill their roles as apostles. This is called delegation, giving others responsibility to perform a certain task, and in turn it gets them involved in the work of the church. Though we don't have apostles among us today, the elders of the church should focus on the spiritual aspect of shepherding by delegating other areas of work to the deacons.
Go way back in time with me to see one of the earliest examples of delegation. Moses had a lot of responsibility placed on his shoulders in leading the Israelites out of Egypt. There was a point in time where he not only was a prophet, but he was also acting as a judge to determine the outcome of disputes between the people (Ex. 18:13ff). When his father-in-law, Jethro saw what was happening by these judgments taking up so much of Moses' time, he told Moses "what you are doing is not good" (17). This not only was taking too much time but it was going to wear everybody out. Jethro recommended a plan of action that would allow Moses to appoint others to judge the cases of the people, but Moses would be consulted when there were hard matters upon which to decide. Because of the advice of Jethro, Moses was able to delegate and therefore take a heavy burden off of his back, per se.
Never be afraid to delegate some task to someone else. Let go of the pride and/or fear that might cause you to help get someone else involved in the Lord's work. Delegate - don't hesitate!
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