Posts by WEAG Communications (Page 9)

Exodus 33:7-11 (NIV focus verse 11)  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face as a man speaks with his friend.  Then Moses would return to the camp, but his young aide Joshua son of Nun did not leave the tent.   God communed with Moses on an intimate basis.  Indeed, the job of getting God’s people from Egypt to the Promised Land was of such importance to God, would impact the future of the Israelites, would change the…

Exodus 32:1-6 (focus verse 2a)I will send an angel before you…   God substituted His personal presence with that of an angel.  The manifest presence of God is for those who walk in holiness.  Revival comes when people repent and choose to live as fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. 

Exodus 32:21 (NLT)  “What did these people do to you to make you bring such terrible sin upon them?”  Notice the ridiculous effort to avoid responsibility for guilt.  Notice the individual responsibility for individual guilt (vs. 25-35).  Sin has consequences.  The wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23)—always has been, always will be.  This eternal truth sits heavy on humanity and especially its leadership.  One day each of us will stand before God to give an account for how we…

Exodus 32:15-20 (focus verse 16) (NIV)  These tablets were God’s work;  the words on them were written by God Himself.   Barely had the final etchings been made into those stone tablets by the holy finger of God when Moses descended the mountain into the depravity of humanity.  Man’s violation of divine law resulted in God’s indignation.  Moses felt the sound waves.  Joshua heard the noise (vs 17).  Imagine the impact of leaving a space that was so filled up…

Exodus 32:11-14 (focus verse 11a & 14) (NIV)  But Moses sought the favor of the Lord his God…Then the Lord relented and did not bring on His people the disaster He had threatened.   Can we even begin to understand the power of intercessory prayer by someone who has influence with God?  Read the stories of great prayer warriors like Rees Howells (read: Rees Howells: Intercessor, by Norman Grubb).  His ministry of intercession during the rise of Adolf Hitler and…

Exodus 32:7 (NIV)  Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go down, because your people, whom you brought up out of Egypt, have become corrupt.”  While Moses was sitting with God and receiving the Ten Commandments, the rule of truth that would define good and evil behavior for every generation to come, God’s people were defaulting into idolatry.  Their impatience interrupted Moses’  communion with God Almighty!  And His attitude toward idolatry is uncompromising intolerance.  We live in a world with a…

Exodus 32:4 (NLT)  “He (Aaron) took what they handed him and made it into an idol cast in the shape of a calf…”   While Moses remained (for 40 days) on the mountain receiving the Ten Commandments from God, the people below feared he may have died, so they defaulted to idolatry.  Egypt had many pagan practices that they were familiar with, and they were just beginning to be acquainted with how to worship Jehovah God.  Moses had not yet…

Exodus 32:1 (The Message)  When the people realized that Moses was taking forever in coming down off the mountain, they rallied around Aaron and said, “Do something…”   Observe how humankind is unable to understand the need of spending time with God.  Our hearts are prone to idolatry.  Moses’  communion with God was interrupted by the impatience of the people!  If we are to be God’s empowered, effective Church in the world today who are led by the Holy Spirit…

Exodus 25:1-31:18 (focus verse 8) (NIV)  “Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them.”   The second session with God lasted 40 days and concerned creating a habitation for God and the manner of worship.  Thus begins a remarkable study in the Tabernacle: our object lesson in how to approach God.  He wants to dwell among us.  Think of it!  What other  “god”  seeks after people?  None but ours.  Let Him draw near to…

Exodus 24:12-18 (focus verse 16b) (NIV)  …For six days the cloud covered the mountain, and on the seventh day the Lord called to Moses from within the cloud.  “Moses was kept waiting at a respectful distance for six days before God called him to draw near.”  This was his second session upon Mt. Sinai, and  “his leaders were present as witnesses to the giving of the Law, but not participants in the receiving of the Law.”  If we want to …

Exodus 20:22 – 23:33 (focus verse 20:22) (NIV)  Then the Lord said to Moses…  God gave to Moses everything recorded here.  It was an exposition of the Law but also described its application to their lives.  We must not read the Bible without inviting the Holy Spirit to give us its proper application.  It is  “God’s breath on a page”  that calls us to be a fully devoted people who love Him first and who also love others.  Jesus told…

Exodus 20:21 (NIV)  The people remained at a distance, while Moses approached the think darkness where God was.  Guilt causes people to stand far away from God.  When God’s Presence begins to settle in around us during a worship service, do you choose to lean into God’s Presence, or do you feel uncomfortable in it?  Guilt is a culprit and always will be.  When we have sinned, guilt takes up residence in our souls.  The Holy Spirit is faithful to…

Exodus 20:18-21 (focus verse 18) (NLT)  When the people heard the thunder and the loud blast of the ram’s horn, and when they saw the flashes of lightning and the smoke billowing from the mountain, they stood at a distance, trembling with fear.   The giving of the Law came with a spectacular display in order to  “disclose God’s awesome majesty and holiness in order to induce man to fear God.”  The people needed a baseline respect and awe established…

Exodus 20:2 (NIV)  I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.   God’s objective is always to bring us into liberty, freedom through Christ Jesus.  Each of us has experienced some kind of slavery to some kind oppressor, some kind of sin.  The whole purpose of the gospel is to “preach good news to the poor…proclaim freedom to the prisoners…recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed. (Luke…

Exodus 20:17 (NIV)  You shall not covet…   God begins to reveal Himself as  “the originator and promulgator of the entire law as the expression of His nature and the demands of His will.”  The Old Testament Law defined what was good and evil.  It revealed the essence of God’s holy nature and the requirements for living according to His will and purposes as a holy people.  Today, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin.  His intent is to lead…

Exodus 19:9-25 (focus verse 16) (NIV)  On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast.  Everyone in the camp trembled.  God revealed Himself   “in His awesome holiness which excludes sinful man from His presence.”  When we see someone in the scriptures coming face to face with God, we find them falling on their face and suddenly recognizing the severity of their own sinfulness…

Exodus 19:9-25 (focus verse 9) (NIV)  The Lord said to Moses, “I am going to come to you in a dense cloud, so that the people will hear me speaking with you and will always put their trust in you…  “God gave Moses a public endorsement as the spokesman of God in order that his words would be received as the words of God.”  Nevertheless, in the days to follow the people would repeatedly rebel against Moses’  leadership.  “People who…

Exodus 19:8 (NIV)  The people all responded together, “We will do everything the Lord has said,”  So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.  The people of Israel  “had yet to learn the true state of their hearts, for there was no reason whatever to suppose that they would obey God in the future any more than they had done in the past.”  How easy it is for us to make commitments to Christ that quickly disintegrate when temptations…

Exodus 19: 3-7 (focus verse 5) (NIV)  If you will obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession…   Moses responded to God by hearing from Him and then speaking for Him to the people.  Consider Moses’  remarkable role and how it, in some ways, aligns with our responsibilities today.  As God’s people, we must take time to hear Him speak to us so that we can know His will,…

Exodus 18:3-4 (NIV)  …One son was named Gershom, for Moses said, “I have become an alien in a foreign land”, and the other was named Eliezer, for he said, “My father’s God was my helper; he saved me from the sword of Pharaoh.”   The names given to Moses’  sons (Gershom: a stranger; Eliezer: God is help) gives us insight to Moses’  thoughts and the feelings of his heart here in the backside of the desert.  God had brought healing…

Exodus 18:1-12 (focus verse 12) (NIV)  Then Jethro, Moses’  father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God…   Notice the progression in this chapter.  First, Moses shares his story with Jethro (vs. 8-9).  Oh, the importance of our stories of God’s faithfulness.  As we share them with our family members and loved ones, we are giving witness to the power of God.  Second, notice Jethro’s response upon hearing Moses’ story: “Now I know that the Lord is greater…

Exodus 17:8-16 (focus verse 11) (NIV)  As long as Moses held up his hands, the Israelites were winning, but whenever he lowered his hands, the Amalekites were winning…Aaron and Hur held his hands up…  God reveals Himself as the Victor in conflict.  “God is uncompromisingly at war with Amalek, a type of the flesh, the  ‘fleshly lusts which war against the soul,’ (I Peter 2:11), ‘and the sin which does so easily beset us’ (Heb. 12:1).  But God is also…

Exodus 17:1-7 (focus verse 2) (NIV)  So they quarreled with Moses and said, “Give us water to drink.”  Moses replied, “Why do you quarrel with me?  Why do you put the Lord to the test?”  God reveals Himself as the Present One in times of testing.  Do we question God’s presence in our lives when times get tough?  Do we really think, after all the years we have served Him, that He would abandon us now in this present crisis? …

Exodus 16:23-36 (focus verse 26) (NIV)  Six days you are to gather it (the manna), but on the seventh day, the Sabbath, there will not be any.  The Sabbath was to be a holy day for God’s people, when all material interests and earthly pursuits were subordinated to the worship of God.  This truth was built into the Ten Commandments:  “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy” (Ex. 20;8).  How do we honor that truth in 2021?  Do we…

Exodus 16: 1-22 (focus verse 4) (NIV)  Then the Lord said to Moses, “I will rain down bread from heaven for you.  The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day.  In this way I will test them to see whether they will follow my instructions.”   God reveals Himself to Israel as the Provider in times of need.  Notice how He made provision for His people without promoting idleness.  Notice how He  “provided sufficiency…

Exodus 18:17-24 (NIV focus verse 18b)  …The work is too heavy for you; you cannot handle it alone…  There is a School of Pressure.  “Moses’  experience shows the danger of turning to the wisdom and methods of the world when the demand in our God-assigned work multiplies beyond the normal limits of our natural resources (Note Numbers 11:14-17).  ‘There was no more power than before—only more machinery.  Moses had murmured because of the burden that God had laid upon him. …

Exodus 17:8, 11-12 (NIV focus verse 12)  When Moses’ hands grew tired, they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it.  Aaron and Hur held his hands up—one on one side, one on the other—so that his hands remained steady, till sunset.  The School of Conflict.  “The challenge of the world, the flesh, and the devil to our progress in God is used as an opportunity to teach our hands to war and our fingers…

Exodus 16:23-36 (NIV focus verse 23)  He said to them, “This is what the Lord commanded: Tomorrow is to be a day of rest, a holy Sabbath to the Lord….   There is a School of Rest.  Obedience to God is not only expressed by consecrated activity, but also by ceasing from the efforts of self; and devotion is not only expressed by serving, but also by sitting in active contemplation and quiet worship.  “There remains therefore a rest to…

Exodus 16:1-22 (NIV)  In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron.  The Children of Israel experienced need and God responded by sending the Manna.  This was the School of Need.  The same Providence which leads us into prosperity that we might learn how to abound for the glory of God also leads us into need that we might learn how to suffer want for the glory of God (Phil. 4:12).  Training in the School of Need might…

Exodus 15:27 (NIV)  Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve springs and seventy palm trees, and they camped there near the water.  The same Providence which trains us in the School of Disappointment and tests the reality of our profession of faith also leads us into the School of Prosperity to experience the abundance of the goodness of God.  There He tests our humility and teaches us gratitude in reference to: the material (Deut. 8:6-14; II Chron 32:22-31),…

Exodus 15: 22-23 (NIV)  Then Moses led Israel from the Red Sea and they went into the Desert of Shur.  For three days they traveled in the desert without finding water.  God would take the Children of Israel through various  “schools of divine providence”  on their wilderness trek to the Promised Land.  Each one was meant to train them so they would be fit for living in and retaining the land of promise.  Their first was the SCHOOL OF DISAPPOINTMENT. …

Exodus 19:5 (NIV)  Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession.   They were to be a people who belonged to God:  “a kingdom of priests, and a holy nation” (vs. 6).  I Peter 2:9 echoes this truth to followers of Jesus Christ today:  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises…

Exodus 14:11-14 – Focus verse: 11 (NIV)  They said to Moses, “Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die?   “Moses, like every spiritual leader since, had to marvel at the capacity of people to idealize or to reinvent the past.”  They blamed the leader for every difficulty.  But Moses interceded for the people.  He pleaded their case before God; and his heart grew each time.  “Constant intercession seems to…

Exodus 7:5 (NIV)  And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in Him and in Moses His servant.   God’s victory over the Egyptians changed the attitude of the Israelites toward God as well as Moses, though only temporarily.  “Moses would endure protracted criticism and opposition from the Hebrews” (McNeal).  Spiritual leaders of all ages admire Moses because they identify with his struggles.  May we…

Exodus 5:2 (NIV)  Pharaoh said, “Who is the Lord, that I should obey him and let Israel go?  I do not know the Lord and I will not let Israel go.”   Pharaoh was the most powerful person in the ancient world and he  “sniffed in disgust at the demands of Moses and Aaron.”  Power struggles engaged.  Pharaohs had godlike status.  The plagues were necessary to answer Pharaoh’s defiant and scornful question.  All the drama surrounding the Exodus compelled recognition…

Exodus 33:11 (NIV)  The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend…  When Moses finally acceded to God’s commission, a remarkable relationship began between a human being and God.  “Moses had to be closer to God than any other human of his day.  Moses would have to deliver the word of God to Pharaoh.  He could not misspeak words of such import.  Moses would take down the very law of God for his…

Exodus 3:4 (NIV)  When the Lord saw that (Moses) had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!”  And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Only God knows how many would-be leaders turn away from the burning bush.  Having decided their own destiny, they close themselves off from the call of God on their lives, or the preoccupation with themselves prevents them from being open to a mission larger than their own definition of possibilities. …

Exodus 18:8 (NIV)  Moses told his father-in-law (Jethro) everything the Lord had done to Pharaoh and Egypt on behalf of Israel.  “The Midianite clan of Jethro probably provided Moses the strongest community of his life.  They nurtured him during his middle years.  God had delivered Moses FROM Egypt and had also delivered him TO Jethro’s family.”**  Think over your life and its people and places.  Give thanks today for your Jethros.  

Exodus 18:7-12 (focus verse 7) (NIV)  So Moses went out to meet his father-in-law.  He bowed low and kissed him.  They asked about each other’s welfare and then went into Moses’  tent.  “A leader’s life journey usually turns up a Jethro or two.  They provide extraordinary affirmation, encouragement, and guidance.  They frequently, but not always, arise from outside the family system.  They typically surface during times of the leader’s self-doubt and at points when the leader’s life mission is crystallizing. …

Exodus 4:19-20 (NIV)  Now the Lord had said to Moses in Midian, “Go back to Egypt, for all the men who wanted to kill you are dead.”  So Moses took his wife and sons…and he took the staff of God in his hand.  “By yielding to God, the shepherd’s lowly rod became  ‘the rod of God’—a rod of authority and power greater than that of the scepter of Egypt.  Whenever Moses raised the rod of God in power, he also…