BURNING BUSH EXPERIENCE - Pt 1

Exodus 3:1-5 “Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb. And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt. And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.”

You and I live in an age of communication. It just boggles my mind to see how fast technology is changing today. About a year ago I saw a company that was promoting a new phone coming on the market that was going to be a 4-G phone. It was no time until other companies were coming on the market with the same technology.

They are now advertising the capability to make your own 3-D video, and you won’t have to wear those silly looking glasses.

We communicate through e-mail (even though most are only fowards), facebook, twitter and texting. I don’t know how to text and really don’t want to know. Just about everybody has a cell phone today. They are very useful but I do wish some people would turn them off so that you could have a meal or a private conversation whithout being interrupted by those pesky instruments.

The bad thing about using the phone today is that almost no one answers their phone. Most people screen their calls and lets voice mail hold them until a convenient time to return the calls. The only thing bad about that is the fact that some people never return their calls.

There is a universal question people ask each other in regard to left messages; “Did you get my message?” I wonder if God ever thinks about that in regard to us? He could say the same thing, “Did you get MY MESSAGE?”

There are some messages we get from God that we HEAR but do not HEED. I believe there are certain messages that God places in the path of each of us that we never get, or if we do, we don’t heed.

In the next few weeks of CHALLENGING CONCEPTS, I want us to review a very familiar and interesting message that was given to Moses. I want us to evaluate that call and compare it to how God calls and equips His servants for a specific task. I believe there are many parallels between Moses and today’s Christian worker.

As you and I look at this passage of Scripture in the coming weeks, I believe there are practical lessons we can learn. At this time in the life of Moses, he is in a very difficult time. He has felt the call to aid his kinsman in the flesh, but he has made some very obvious mistakes.

The history of Moses is far too extensive to cover here in this study and far too familiar to deal with in detail. After divine intervention, Moses ends up living in Egypt and according to Acts 7:22 “. . .Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.”

As the older Moses grew, he began to see the suffering of his people. A choice had to be made. He made it and in Hebrews 11:25 we read of that choice: “Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season;” One day Moses saw a Jew being beaten by an Egyptian and took the matter into his hands and killed the Egyptian. He had to run for his life and spent the next forty years being equipped to lead his people out of bondage.

Moses had felt the call to help his kinsman in flesh, but he made a very obvious mistake. He tried to accomplish the work of God in the flesh. Because he did not have God’s blessing upon his action and he had to suffer the consequence.

Here is a warning for each of us. Operating in the flesh, our old carnal nature, cannot accomplish spiritual things. In Paul’s letter to the Romans he tells about his struggle with the flesh. Notice 7:18 “For I know that in me (that is in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.” If the Apostle Paul struggled with the flesh, why do we think we would be any different.

In our service for the Lord we must be on guard against this old adamic nature. Notice Romans 13:14 “But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.”

The word “provision” means “forethought.” Paul is saying that the believer should not give flesh ammunition to our enemy. It’s pretty bad to think about giving our enemy weapons and ammunition to fight against ourselves. Instead, we are to “Put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ;” being clothed with Christ or making Him the government agent of our lives.

Instead of working in the flesh, God’s work must be done in the power of the Holy Spirit. Paul writes in Galatians 5:16 “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh.” Being controlled by the Holy Spirit is the guarantee that our ministry will not be done in the flesh.

Moses made this mistake, but God is the giver of second chances and He does so after 40 years of preparation. What Moses went through would have made the average man throw up his hands in frustration, but God developed him into the man He is going to call to lead His people out of bondage.

In the next few weeks of CHALLENGING CONCEPTS I want us to see how a Sovereign God chooses a willing servant to do a specific ministry. I trust you’ll read every one of these and allow that Sovereign God to speak to your heart.

That’s my view; how about you?