Learning, Not Wandering
This week, Jodi Lenker came back to give us the next installment/message about the Israelites (after they fled Egypt).
The Bible verses we read/reference are:
Exodus 19:3-4
Numbers 13:25-29
One very powerful rabbinic statement reads: It took one night to take Israel out of Egypt, but it took 40 years to take Egypt out of Israel.
Exodus 12:40 says that God’s people were in Egypt for at 430 years. In that time, they had learned a lot of ungodly behaviors (Just look at the golden calf debacle in Exodus 32). The Israelites were not lost and wandering for 40 years. God held them there for 40 years so they could learn.
They needed 40 years in order for God to use Moses to help teach them how to align themselves with God. They needed the Ten Commandments. They needed the Tabernacle. They needed the Ark. Heck - they needed to learn how to clean themselves. They were not ready to lead their own nation when they crossed the parted Red Sea. God provided for them the whole time He was teaching them.
The Israelites are God’s chosen people. However, when you accept Jesus into your life, you become another member of God’s chosen people. God came through for the Jews who fled Egypt, He will come through for you too.
There are times in life when we feel like we are lost, but if we really looked, we would see that God is providing for us, just like he did for the Israelites.
If we could read the Bible in one year, and know it all, we would never need to read it again. But, that is not the case. God is always yearning for us to grow closer to Him and learn more. We learn more by spending time in His Word.
Jodi challenged everyone to: write. Document whatever time you are in (good or bad) and capture any message God is giving you. Being able to look back at the different words that God has given you or the times He has brought you though will give you two things:
Remembrance. Recalling what God has done and can do and the times He came through for you.
Perspective. Seeing past obstacles and the end victory will help you see more clearly.
In closing, Jodi gave us all some perspective… We are fortunate to live in a country where we can worship God freely. Just yesterday, this article was published by CBN: From Horror in Nigeria to North Korea: Report Exposes Global Terror Against Believers | CBN News. Let us not take our freedom to learn more about God (through the Bible).
