9-7-14. Exodus 2:1-10.  God Has A Great Purpose -my devotional

Exodus 2:1-10                                                                            Kevin E. Jesmer

Key Verse: 2:2b                                                                        9-7-14

 “…When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months.”

 Lord, please help me to accept your word from Exodus. Help me to grow through it. Guide my heart, mind and my steps by your words and your spirit. I pray in Jesus’ name. Amen!

 Part 1:  Parent’s With Living Faith (1-4)

Parents need to see their kids with eyes of hope and vision. Moses’ parents did. Look at Exodus 2: 1-4, “Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, 2 and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son. When she saw that he was a fine child, she hid him for three months. 3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.” (NIV)

Moses’ parents (Jochebed and Amram) were Levites. Their second son was born under an edict of death. They defied the king’s edict and hid the baby as long as they could. His mother believed that God had a special purpose for her son. She believed that God, who gave him to her would save him and work through him in a great and historical way. By faith, she did what she could, and God did the rest. Hebrews 11:23 reads, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (NIV).

Parents can see something great in their children. Moses was a baby. What did baby Moses have that all the other babies didn’t have? Was it the way that he tracked his parents with his eyes as they walked across the room? Was it the way he coo’ed when they picked him up? What was it? I think that God opened their spiritual eyes to see something great in this boy. God was communicating to them in their hearts about this child.

Parents need to see their kids with eyes of hope. God hopes in every child, that the child will overcome the darkness of this world and grow up to do something that will glorify God, that they will bear fruit that lasts. No parent should ever see their child as hopeless, because they are not hopeless. Because God hopes in them they can rise up out of any situation and glorify the God who created them. Parents should never stop hoping in their children. They need someone to hope in them. Pity the child who has no one to hope in them and plant vision in them. That is part of the job of parents. Pity the child who has no one to gaze into their eyes and say with all sincerity, “This is no ordinary child.” If we, as parents, have stopped hoping in our kids, it is never too late to start over. We can begin to hope and begin to plant vision even now.

Parents, friends and caregivers should never give up trying to find a way to love. In Exodus 2, Moses’ parents were brave to go against the godless edict of the king. They risked their lives and the lives of their family in order to save the child. They held on for as long as she could. But the baby was crying and it was hard to keep the baby to be hidden. What could they do? At first she didn’t know, but they knew that they couldn’t give up. They found a way. Look at Exodus 2:3 and 4, “3 But when she could hide him no longer, she got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. 4 His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him.” (NIV) Moses’ mother put him in the Nile River, but she did not throw him in as the edict instructed. She made a water-proof basket, placed the baby in it, and put it among the reeds near the river bank. Love and faith found a away where there is no way. God inspired her to find a novel, new approach. Jesus is our way maker. He makes a way where there is no way.

Never give up. There is always something we can do that God will bless. And when we think that there is nothing else to do, we can always pray and encourage others around us. God will come through in due time to reveal the way. The point is, our faith should spur us on to never give up trying to do what is right in the eyes of God for those we are called to love and care for.

For me this means that I must also never give up trying to find each of my kids to be rooted and growing spiritually in Christ and for Julie and I to grow as one.  It means to find ways to prosper the work of God and to never give up trying to send a pipeline of missionaries to the remote First Nation communities of Northern Canada.

Their actions revealed their faith. Theirs was a living faith. Their faith was revealed by their deeds. Our faith must be living and active. James says that faith without deeds is dead. (James 2:16-18 reads, “16 If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead. 18 But someone will say, “You have faith; I have deeds.” Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by my deeds.” (NIV)

God had a great plan for Moses’ life. The fulfillment of that plan was not just because of good parenting skills of his mom and dad. Yes, his parents knew that Moses would be great and they planted that hope in the heart of their son. Hebrews 11:23 reads, “By faith Moses’ parents hid him for three months after he was born, because they saw he was no ordinary child, and they were not afraid of the king’s edict.” (NIV). Moses’ life outcome was not just the product of his parents putting their hope in a child, but is was God calling this child from birth to serve a great and wonderful purpose in history. Moses was not just a product of his parents’ hoping in him. It was actually the will of God from the beginning of his life. King David had this faith, that all of his days were ordained for him before even one of them came to be. Psalm 139:16 reads, “6 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”  (NIV) God has a plan for each of us. We need to all find our destiny in God and live it. Then we can have peace and joy that comes when we have confidence that we are living according to God’s calling on our lives. This is not easy to find. It takes time. We are a work in process. God is constantly laying a foundation for future works. I have found in my own life that it has taken 32 years of being in Christ to even begin to see my ultimate purpose in life. And even now, if I ventured to take a guess at it I probably would be wrong. I do have a peace and satisfaction in my heart that God is leading me according to his sovereign will however.

Part 2: There Is No Accident In God (5-10)

Verses 5-10, “Then Pharaoh’s daughter went down to the Nile to bathe, and her attendants were walking along the riverbank. She saw the basket among the reeds and sent her female slave to get it. 6 She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one of the Hebrew babies,” she said. 7 Then his sister asked Pharaoh’s daughter, “Shall I go and get one of the Hebrew women to nurse the baby for you?” 8 “Yes, go,” she answered. So the girl went and got the baby’s mother. 9 Pharaoh’s daughter said to her, “Take this baby and nurse him for me, and I will pay you.” So the woman took the baby and nursed him. 10 When the child grew older, she took him to Pharaoh’s daughter and he became her son. She named him Moses, saying, “I drew him out of the water.”

It was no accident that Pharaoh’s daughter was the one who discovered him. It was all part of God’s plan for Moses’ life. God wanted to provided Moses with the good nurturing of his mother and then a palace education. His own mother was given a chance to instill faith in his heart as she nursed him and prayed for him. She would also plant a Hebrew identity in Moses. God was beginning to laying a solid foundation for some future ministry, a ministry that Moses was not going to fulfill until he was 80 years old when Moses would lead the Israelites out of bondage and into the Promised Land. God’s plan is better than Moses’ mother could imagine. She not only could raise her son, but she even got a career with lots of perks, being hired by Pharaoh’s daughter. God blessed her struggle.

God has a better plan for us than we do for ourselves. We think we can shepherd our own lives without Jesus. But this is not the case. Our Good Shepherd Jesus leads us to green pastures and quiet waters. We just need to let go and let God.

God is in control. There are no accidents in God. God has a great purpose. God is looking ahead 30 or even 80 years into the future. God is faithfully unfolding his plan. I know of one LAMP pilot who flies into Northern Canada doing VBS in remote First Nations communities. He got his pilot’s license when he was 61 years old!

I cannot think that far in the future in regards to my life in Christ. I cannot imagine what God will do in NW Ontario two years from now. I can speculate and guess what he will do one year from now. When I thought about the Mission to the North December 2013, I could never image what would come about in 2014. It is amazing what God accomplished. It was unimaginable. But he did it. God is working on a “decades” long plan and beyond. I am working, at most on a one year plan.

God had a better plan for me when he helped me to be a husband and a father of five and a nurse,. He knew what he was doing when he trained me to be a Bible teacher in the UBF for 26 years, and bring our family to Dekalb Il to serve in a house church setting for 12 years. He knows what he was doing when he lead us to KBC and introduced us to Network of Nations, the Art of Marriage and the Mission to the North. God is in control. He is working out his plan. He has laid a better foundation, and brought forth more lasting fruit in my life than I can possibly procure on my own.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for having a plan for each of our lives and fulfilling our destiny in you. We want to let go and allow you to be the shepherd of our lives.

One Word: God has a plan and is laying a foundation to fulfill it.