Fri.’s Devo - God Was With Moses and God is With Us.

Read: Exodus 4:1-5:21; Matthew 18:1-22; Psalm 22:19-31; Proverbs 5:15-21
God equipped Moses with the power to do three miracles: turn his staff into a snake and back again, make his arm leprous then clean, and turn the Nile into blood. All Moses could give God was excuses why he was not the right man to send. God had chosen Moses, but he did tell him he would let Aaron, his blood brother go with him. So, Moses left with his father-in-laws blessing, his wife and son. Moses and Zipporah must have had an argument about circumcising Gershom because when God went to kill Moses, Zipporah quickly circumcised Gershom and threw the foreskin at Moses feet which saved Moses’ life.
God also told Moses to tell the Pharaoh that Israel was His firstborn son and if he refused to give him to the Lord, God would take his first born son. We all know that this was the last plague that made Pharaoh finally let them go. God always tells the end from the beginning.
Moses met first with the Israelite leaders. They were impressed with his signs and wonders and agreed to go with him to see Pharaoh. When Pharaoh met with Moses and Aaron it didn’t go like Moses had hoped. Not only was Pharaoh unafraid of God but he ordered them to harder work than before. This made Moses very unpopular with his own people.
When God calls us to a task, we can expect opposition from both sides but that doesn’t mean that it is not God’s will. We have to persevere and keep seeking the Lord for guidance. Egypt and Israel were both operating under their own strongholds. Egypt was operating under gods of this world and Israel was operating under the gods of unbelief and hopelessness. They were both comfortable with their gods. Moses had come to shake things up and bring about a deliverance. This is exactly what is happening in our nation right now. We need to be sure we are on God’s side. Moses never wanted the people to worship him; he wanted to lead them to worship God. That is always the goal.
Jesus explains how he looks at individuals. He sees everyone’s plight and will judge the oppressor and rescue the oppressed. Everyone will be judged according to their works. Proverbs puts it this way, “For a man’s ways are in full view of the Lord, and he examines all his paths.”
Jesus gave them instruction how to deal with offenses within the body of believers. We are told not to judge the world, but we are to deal with matters among brothers in the faith. We are reminded once again about binding and loosing. We can bind good things to our souls and loose bad things and we can bind demonic spirits and loose the angels of God. There is so much to binding and loosing that we are not doing.
Jesus told us to get a prayer partner who has the same heart and agree about things and God will be the third witness and he can act on our agreement.
Lastly, Jesus dealt with forgiveness. He wasn’t telling Peter how many times to forgive but HOW to forgive. “Seven times seven” means completely and thoroughly without any strings attached. God forgives and forgets so we need to choose to forgive and forget.
Lord, help me to forgive like you forgive, and love like you love. Teach us that our battles are not against flesh and blood but spiritual powers in high places and you have defeated all of them.