Read: Genesis 50:1-Exodus 2:10; Matthew 16:13-17:9; Psalm 21:1-13; Proverbs 5:1-6
Joseph had come a long way from boasting about his dreams of his brother’s sheaves bowing down to his, to submitting to the customs of a foreign land. Joseph honored the Pharaoh and his ways even allowing them to embalm his father and accompany his family to Canaan to bury his father. Joseph’s submission gave him favor, position, and many privileges. Jacob was buried in the family burying site and Joseph made his sons promise to carry his bones with them when God brought them out of Egypt and bury them here. Joseph remembered God’s promise that he would bring his people back to the land God had promised Abraham. Joseph understood the importance of sleeping in Sheol with his family.
Jacob’s family multiplied and grew in the land of Egypt and years after Jacob’s sons had died, a Pharaoh came to power who didn’t know what Joseph had done for Egypt. He saw the Israelites as a threat to his kingdom so he wanted to stop them multiplying so fast. He began with the midwives, but they feared God above him and refused to kill the boy babies. So, the Pharaoh commanded all the boy babies under two to be thrown into the Nile.
That was when Moses was born to a Levite family. Somehow, his mom understood that this baby was special so she hid him until he got too big to hide. She decided to put him in a basket and have his big sister, Miriam take him down to the Nile knowing that the Pharaoh’s daughter came there to bathe. Miriam was to watch from the bushes. Sure enough, the Pharaoh’s daughter found Moses and fell in love with him the moment she saw him. The plan had worked and Miriam was able to offer her mother as his nursemaid. How sweet to give Moses’ mom this time with her son. How interesting that Moses’s mom placed Moses in the same river that the other babies were losing their life in. God is the one who turns curses into blessings. He turns death into life. How interesting that every time God wants to bring a deliverer forth, the devil has the babies killed. That should be hope for us since abortion has killed so many babies in our day.
Rocks stand for promises so when Jesus changed Simon’s name to Peter and told him that upon this rock he would build his church he was talking about what Peter had said. Peter had proclaimed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of the living God. That is the foundation of the church. Now that his disciples believed that he was the Christ, he was able to give them more of the plan. He had to go to Jerusalem, suffer persecution by the hands of the ‘religious’ leaders, be killed and rise on the third day. His disciples had a hard time processing this information.
So Jesus took Peter, James and John up on a mountain and he showed them his glory. He took them back to the time when he spoke to Moses and Elijah on that same mountain and gave them a glimpse into his plan. Since it was the feast of Tabernacles and everyone was building booths for the celebration, they wanted to build one for their guests also. Once again, they were thinking natural about supernatural things.
God spoke out of the cloud and said, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear him.”
Lord, help us to do just that…hear your voice out of our confusion. Help us to rise up and not be afraid.
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