Category Archives: Essential 100

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Let Go Of Your Past

Essential 100—Read:
Joshua 1:1-18

“After the death of Moses the servant of the Lord, the Lord said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: ‘Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites.’” ~Joshua 1:1-2

Just like Joshua and the Israelites, God has placed a vision of a personal Promised Land in your heart. But the first step along the path to pursuing God’s vision requires something critical to the rest of your journey: You’ve got to let go of the past. Possessing your Promised Land means you’ve got to make a healthy break with whatever you are clinging to—for sure, the bad, and sometimes even the good!

You will notice the very first thing God said to Joshua (Joshua 1:2) was, “Moses is dead!”  Don’t you think Joshua already knew that? Of course he did! So there is more to this verse than meets the eye. God is telling Joshua that he’s going to do a new work in a new way, so Joshua can no longer rely on Moses—as wonderful as Moses was. No, Joshua will have to rely completely on God. God will give Joshua a breakthrough to a new and prosperous future that will require a break with the old dependencies of the past!

For you, that means moving forward into new blessings will require you to jettisoning two things:

One, you have to jettison your love affair with past successes. And two, you have to say goodbye to past failures. You can’t stay stuck in the past—either good or bad if you want to move forward! The Apostle Paul said it this way in Philippians 3:7 & 13-14,

“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ… Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Paul had learned from the past, both mistakes and successes, but his total focus was on the future.  That’s what you’ve got to do, too! Faith always focuses on the future.  So how do you let go of the past? Hebrews 12:1 provides the answer,

“Let us strip off every weight that slows us down, especially the sin that so easily hinders our progress.” 

The writer is referring to a race, where excess weight is not good. And to run effectively, the verse says you’ve got to let go of a couple things: First, you’ve got to let go of the unnecessary and second, you’ve got to let go of the ungodly.

What is the unnecessary? It is “the weight that slows us down.” Weight is not necessarily sin—although sin is always a weight. A weight is anything that keeps you from offering your best to God, or receiving God’s best for you.  In fact, a weight might even be something that’s good—that’s why it’s so hard to let go of. If there are some good things in your life keeping you from God’s best things, then identify them and strip them off.

What is the ungodly? It is “the sin that so easily hinders us.” The writer isn’t talking about sin in general—although that is certainly appropriate to let go of—he is speaking of specific sin into which we habitually fall. That is what we might call “familiar sin”. What sin do you keep falling into? What’s your area of moral compromise? Whatever your besetting sin, you’ve got to let it go!

To run your race effectively, to possess your promise of blessing, you have to identify the weight you’re carrying around—successes and sins—and declare over them:  Moses is dead!  Let go of the past—and get moving into the fantastic future God envisions for you!

“You cannot set sail for new faith-horizons while still tethered to the dock of yesterday.”

Reflect and Apply: Take some time to identify those “weights” that are slowing you down and the “sins” that are tripping you up. Then declare over them, “Moses is dead!”  Most of all, begin to move forward into the future God has set before you.

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Knowing God

Essential 100—Read:
Exodus 32:1-34:35

“The Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.” ~Exodus 33:11

If I could choose in advance the epitaph that would describe me at the end of my life, it would be this: “The Lord would speak to Ray Noah face to face, as a man speaks with his friend.”

Is that really possible for a human being? It was for Moses! If anyone ever really knew God, if a human being ever experienced an extraordinarily intimate revelation of God, if a man ever truly had a close personal friendship with God, it was Moses.

But Moses didn’t always have this kind of relationship with God. If you were to review Moses’ life, you would be reminded that in his first forty years, Moses knew a lot about God. He was born to Hebrew parents, but raised in the lap of luxury in the Egyptian palace as one of Pharaoh’s sons—he was a prince of Egypt. Moses knew about God through his heritage, but there is no indication of a walk with God characterized by love and obedience. In fact, it appears Moses was somewhat indifferent to God.

But then Moses tried to play God and killed an Egyptian, and he had to flee the palace to the backside of the Sinai Desert, where he lived as a fugitive for the next forty years until he met God at the burning bush. And during these four decades, Moses unlearned everything he knew about God in the first forty years. It was a desert experience—literally and spiritually—where Moses knew nothing but the silence of God. God had enrolled Moses in the University of the Desert—the Graduate School of Sinai—where he trained Moses in the curricula of solitude, monotony and failure.

But then came the burning bush, which marked the beginning of the final forty years of Moses’ life. And in this period, he came to know and experience God the way we want to know and experience him: In his power and glory. Moses, unlike any other man, experienced first hand every attribute of God a human being could possibly experience: God’s omnipotence—that he is all-powerful; his omniscience—that he is all-wise and knowing; his omnipresence—that he is everywhere at all times; his Divine nature—that is, his justice, righteousness, holiness, and incomparable greatness.

What more could a human want? Yet that wasn’t enough. Moses didn’t just want to know about God, he wasn’t satisfied with seeing the evidence of God’s activity. He wanted more:

“If you are pleased with me, teach me your ways so that I may know you and continue to find favor with you…Now show me your glory.” (Exodus 33:13,18)

You’ve got to admire Moses’ boldness, audacity and greediness for God! Here is what he’s really asking: “God, I want to know you…your character…your nature…what makes you tick. I want to enter into the deepest dimension of intimacy with the Almighty that’s possible for one human being.”

Amazingly, God obliged this big, audacious request—he revealed himself fully to Moses. (Exodus 33:14-23) Now this doesn’t simply tell us something about Moses, it mostly reveals something vitally important about God:

God wants us to know how much he wants to be known.

He has made himself knowable. He is not some unapproachable deity way out there in a galaxy far, far away. He is the God who is there, the God who is near, the God who will reveal himself to those who long to know him.

“What other nation is so great as to have their gods near them the way the Lord our God is near us whenever we pray to him.” (Deuteronomy 4:7)

God want us to know that he’s near and that he is knowable: “I will cause my goodness to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.” (Exodus 33:19) In other words, I’ll let you know me.

To ask to know him is a request that pleases the heart of God! You see, that’s what we were made for: To know God. That’s what he desires from us. God himself says in Hosea 6:6, “For I desire…the knowledge of God [from you] more than burnt offerings.” And that should be our chief aim in life—to know God—because that is truly the sweetest nectar of life. Jeremiah 9:23-24 says,

“This is what the LORD says: ‘Let not the wise man gloat in his wisdom, or the mighty man in his might, or the rich man in his riches. Let them boast in this alone: that they truly know me and understand that I am the LORD who is just and righteous, whose love is unfailing, and that I delight in these things. I, the LORD, have spoken!”

Knowing God is the best thing in life. In fact, it is eternal life. Jesus said in John 17:3, “This is eternal life: That they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

God has offered to let you know him—really know him. It’s the best offer you’ll ever get! I would take him up on it if I were you.

“Once you become aware that the main business that you are here for is to know God, most of life’s problems fall into place of their own accord.” ~J.I. Packer

Reflect and Apply: Not only does God want to be known, God has made himself available. He doesn’t want you just to know about him, he wants you to intimately know his person. God is knowable and personable. Exodus 33:11 tells us that Moses knew God as a friend, and that he “would speak to Moses face-to-face.” Exodus 33:14 God tells Moses, “My presence will go with you…” Exodus 33:19 says that God “caused his goodness to pass in front of him and proclaimed his name in Moses’ presence.” God said he would let Moses see the after-effects of his glory in Exodus 33:22. What is God saying? “I want you to know me, and I will make myself available to you. And now you will not only know about me, you will see and experience my very nature and personhood.” That’s quite an invitation! Have you taken God up on his offer?

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Don’t Miss The Point

Essential 100—Read:
Exodus 19:1-20:21

“You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”

~Exodus 19:4-6

This is the stuff Hollywood loves: Smoke covering the mountain, peels of thunder, flashes of lightening, God’s voice booming from the thick cloud, Moses reappearing from the fog carrying the Ten Commands. It is hard not to get caught up in the special effects and the sheer drama of this scene.

But don’t miss the bigger picture in the finer details of these two chapters. There are some unforgettable and enduring truths here that we New Testament Christians tend to set aside because of the new covenant we now live under in Jesus Christ, who was the perfect fulfillment of this law delivered in these chapters.

The first point is this: God wants us to be his very own people, set aside for his holy purposes. Just as he told Israel that he had selected them out of all the peoples on the planet to be his—and with it, if they honored him, unbelievable and unending blessings—so he has chosen followers of his Son to be his new community.

I was just reading a book by Brennan Manning in which he suggested that wherever you come across the word “Israel” in the Old Testament, you should substitute your own name there and personalize that passage to yourself.  In general, that’s not a bad way to read the Bible. The point is, God is still searching for a covenantal people—the job is still open, and you are fully qualified.

The second point is this: God is holy and he demands holiness in us if we are to be his very own people. One of the unmistakable themes in this passage (and throughout the Bible) is the holiness of God and the requirement of holiness from us if we are to be in relationship with him; if we are going to live within his favor. When God told Moses he was going to appear and give Israel his law, he warned them first to purify themselves:

“Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.” (Exodus 19:10-11)

Hebrews 12:14 says, “without holiness no one will see the Lord.” For sure, we are judged positionally holy before God when we are redeemed.  But then we are called to give great effort to progressive holiness along the way between our salvation and our eternal home. Don’t ever forget: God is still holy, and he still desires holiness among his people—and that includes you.

The final point is this: God’s justice is far outweighed by his mercy.  Did you catch that stunning statement within the Ten Commandments in Exodus 20:5-6?  Most people get stuck on the first part and miss the second half; the world dips their quill from the ink of the former clause to write God into a corner without considering the outrageous grace and beauty of the latter.

“I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.”

Yes, God is holy and demands purity among his people. Yes, God is just and therefore must punish sin. For sure, sin has far reaching consequences—even jumping generations, sadly affecting children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. But don’t miss it—God is a forgiving God. In fact, that is his name: Forgiveness. (Exodus 34:5-7) And his forgiveness freely flows to thousands upon thousands of generations. Forgiveness—God is just dying to give it. In fact, in Christ, he did!

For sure, there is not a more dramatic section in all of Scripture.  But don’t lose sight of the big picture amidst the drama of the details.  It makes the story all the more dramatic—irresistibly so!

“How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible.”  ~C.S. Lewis

Reflect and Apply: Re-read the Ten Commandments, this time, focusing not from a rule orientation, but from a perspective of relationship.  That is the whole point of God’s Law: He is looking for a people he can love, and who will love him.

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Everyone Wants A Testimony, Until…

Essential 100—Read:
Exodus 13:17-14:31

“As Pharaoh approached, the Israelites looked up, and there were the Egyptians, marching after them. They were terrified and cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, ‘Was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt?’” ~Exodus 14:10-11

So you want a testimony, do you? So do I! But are you willing to go through the circumstances that  give rise to that testimony? Are you willing to have your back against the wall, to know that unless God comes through you’ll go down in flames, to despair even of life itself? You see, those are the conditions of which great testimonies are made.

Joseph had to spend some time in the pit before God lifted him up to the second highest position in all of Egypt. David had to actually go out onto the battlefield and stand before Goliath before he became a giant-slayer. Daniel had to literally get tossed into a den full of protein-craving lions for the angel of the Lord to come and clamp their canines. Paul had to cruise into the midst of a deadly storm in order to survive an otherwise deadly shipwreck. Jesus had to go through the ordeal of the cross in order to overcome the grave.

I think you get the point. Sadly, however, too many Christians want a testimony without the trial. Sorry, it doesn’t work that way. The children of Israel desperately wanted God to deliver them from their bondage in Egypt, but they complained bitterly when it caused them discomfort. On more than one occasion they whined at Moses and complained about God because they weren’t consulted about the Divine deliverance plan.

Now God graciously put up with their moaning, but he came really close to losing his cool. And even though they were ultimately delivered and ended up with a terrific testimony—in spite of their bellyaching—they were forever tagged with the whiner label.

Here’s the deal: Don’t be that way! If you want a testimony—and I think you do—then allow God to bring it to you in any way he sees fit. Just trust, don’t complain—even when you find yourself in the midst of the not-so-pleasant stuff out of which great testimonies arise. Just know that whatever discomfort, discouragement and pain you experience always pale in comparison to the story you get and the glory God gets.

“Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.” ~Charles Spurgeon 

Reflect and Apply: How long has it been since you’ve stopped to thank God for the thorns he’s allowed in your life? Do it right now, since it is those very thorns that God is using to shape you for greater, even eternal things.

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Thou Shalt Remember!

Essential 100—Read:
Exodus 12:1-42

“This is a day you are to commemorate; for the generations to come you shall celebrate it as a festival to the Lord—a lasting ordinance.” ~Exodus 12:14’”

I have always been intrigued with the number of times throughout Scripture that God called his people to remember his mighty acts of deliverance by prescribing for them various kinds of memorial observances. In some cases, the memorial came in the form of an altar of remembrance (Joshua 4:1-7), at other times it involved the symbolism of the priestly garments (Exodus 28:12), while some of the time it was to happen through a regular sacrifice (Leviticus 2:16), a festival (Numbers 10:10), or a high, holy day (Exodus 12:14). Most importantly, for the New Testament community, the regular observance of Holy Communion (I Corinthians 11:23-26) replaced all other official observances that were mnemonically related.

Apparently, God was concerned that his people would remember who he is, what he had done for them, and why he had called them to specific acts of remembrance. So why such concern?  We’ve got a memory problem, that’s why!  We tend to get fuzzy on the important things we ought to be very clear about. People forget the covenant promise to be faithful to their spouse and begin to drift in their marriage. Parents forget how much their kids need both mom and a dad and follow their selfish desires by pursuing divorce…at a horrible cost to their children. We get sidetracked from our primary purposes in life because we fail to remember our core values.  We drift spiritually because we get busy with spiritual-sounding activities, but forget to love the Lord.

That’s why Jesus said : “Remember your first love…remember the heights from which you have fallen and return…remember, every time you do this, my blood, my body. Remember.” Over and over the Bible calls us to remember lest we forget. You can’t read too far into God’s Word before noticing that a strong theology of remembrance is woven into the fabric of the chosen community.

God understood the power of memory and how visible representations would evoke powerful emotions that would reconnect us to defining events in our lives.  He knew how symbols of memory could arrest our tendency to drift spiritually and refocus us on the core experience of loving him. That is exactly why he instituted the Passover in the Old Testament and replaced it with Holy Communion in the New. God doesn’t want us to forget him.

Perhaps that should be the Eleventh Commandment: Thou Shalt Remember!

“As I would cast my mind over the day, I would see evidence of what God had done for one of us that I had not recognized in the busy moments of the day. As that happened, and it happened often, I realized that trying to remember had allowed God to show me what He had done.”  ~Henry B. Eyring

Reflect and Apply: The next time you partake of the Lord’s Table with your spiritual community, make a special and strategic effort to remember what the communion represents: the mightiest act of God ever expressed—the sacrifice of his Son on the cross. Call to mind God’s grace and mercy, and express heartfelt gratitude for his gift.  And then consider what such wondrous love now demands of you. And don’t forget!

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Can God Do That?

Essential 100—Read:

Exodus 6:28-30, 7:1-11:10

“But I will harden Pharaoh’s heart, and though I multiply my miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt, he will not listen to you. Then I will lay my hand on Egypt and with mighty acts of judgment I will bring out my divisions, my people the Israelites.” ~Exodus 7:3-4

This isn’t the first, nor will it be the last instance in the Bible that doesn’t fit neatly within our theological box. That God would harden Pharaoh’s heart messes with our sophisticated sensibilities about God, namely that he is a safe, kind, benevolent and loving Deity who would never raise someone up just to throw them down.

What are we to do with this difficult part of the Bible? It would be so much easier to deal with if it just appeared once, a vague Scriptural anomaly, but it doesn’t. Not just once and then swept under the rug, this statement about God hardening Pharaoh’s heart appears ten times here in Exodus and yet again in Romans 9:16-18? Obviously, the Bible doesn’t try to hide this just because it is difficult to explain or because it makes us uncomfortable. No, it is unavoidably here for us to grapple with.

On the one hand, there are some that would have it that God was simply responding to what was already in Pharaoh’s heart, thus relieving God of any responsibility in the matter of hardening the king’s heart in order to justify destroying him. On the other hand, there are those who would quite bluntly declare that God created Pharaoh exactly for the express purpose of destroying him in order to bring glory to himself.

Perhaps the truth lies somewhere between.  The fact is, God does involve himself in the details of man’s affairs in order to bring about his sovereign plan, and he is well within his unimpeachable righteousness to align those who are his enemies for utter judgment so that his great power might be displayed in all the earth. Pharaoh is Example A of this. Yet at the same time, we must note that Pharaoh was duly warned that his stubborn refusal to obey God would result in judgment. (Exodus 4:23) We also find that the hardening God brought about in Pharaoh’s heart was, interestingly, matched by Pharaoh hardening his own heart: Ten times God hardened Pharaoh’s heart (Exodus 7:3; 9:12; 10:1,20, 27; 11:10; 14:4,8,17) and ten times Pharaoh hardened his own heart (Exodus 7:13,14,22; 8:15,19,32; 9:7,34,35; 13:15).

What does that tell us?  Simply that God, whose will and whose ways are inscrutable, is within his absolute sovereignty to bring about what he desires in human affairs—including hardening a ruler’s heart; yet man is never without personal responsibility in surrendering to the sovereign rulership of God.

Does that make this uncomfortable piece of Scripture any easier to swallow?  No—and yes. No, it will always shake that comforting image of a loving, safe God.  Yes, we can lean into the track record of God’s loving omniscience and righteous omnipotence, and along with the Apostle Paul in Romans 11:33-36, declare with utter certainty in the face of mysterious passages like this,

Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments, and his paths beyond tracing out!
Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?
Who has ever given to God, that God should repay them?
For from him and through him and for him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.

Yes indeed, glory to God forever.  Soli Deo Gloria!

“Man is a responsible moral agent, though he is also divinely controlled; man is divinely controlled, though he is also a responsible moral agent.” ~J.I. Packer

Reflect and Apply: Jonathan Edwards, considered to be America’s greatest theologian, wrote, “In efficacious grace we are not merely passive, nor yet does God do some and we do the rest. But God does all, and we do all. God produces all, we act all. For that is what produces, viz. our own acts. God is the only proper author and fountain; we only are the proper actors. We are in different respects, wholly passive and wholly active.” Reflect on that statement; then ask yourself, “How am I doing in my part?”

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So You Want A Burning Bush, Do You?

Essential 100—Read:
Exodus 3:1-4:17

“When the LORD saw that Moses had gone over to look, God called to him from within the burning bush, ‘Moses! Moses!’ And Moses said, ‘Here I am.’”

“God said, ‘Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.’”
~Exodus 3:4-5

When you read this amazing story about Moses and the flaming tumbleweed from which God spoke, if you are like me, you’re probably thinking, “Man, I’d like a burning bush experience, too!” Whenever we come to places in Scripture where God or one of his holy agents literally, physically interacts with man—Jacob wrestling with God, Daniel visiting with the archangel, Peter on the mount of transfiguration—there is just something inside us that longs to encounter the real, living presence of Almighty God, too.

That is not a bad thing. It simply reminds us that in Adam, we were originally created to walk hand-in-hand with our Creator, enjoying an uninterrupted, unfettered and intimate face-to-face relationship with him. We were designed for that and will continue to desire that until the day God takes us home and our faith once again becomes sight.  In the meantime, perhaps, you or I may be one of those fortunate ones along the way to whom God grants a personal visitation.

But there is another side to those burning bush experiences that we need to keep in mind. You can see it here in this text—and you will find it in any of those other face-to-face encounters peppered throughout Scripture as well. First, you will notice that these revelations are preceded by great need. In this case, the people of God, Israel, were being severely abused as slaves in Egypt. They were crying out to God, and he was fixing to recruit a deliverer to deliver them. The fact of the matter is, more often than not, daunting challenges precede these Divine visitations. So you want a burning bush, you say! Can you handle the bad times that go with them?

Second, you will notice that God’s appearance required the personal purification of the visited. God required Moses to take off his shoes—representing the soiled places literally and spiritually where Moses had trod. Special visitations of the Divine Visitor are never just so he can chat—he has arranged for that to be accomplished through everyday prayer. When he shows up, it is to reveal his special purpose—and the prerequisite for the revelation of his purpose is always clean hands and a pure heart on our part. So you want a burning bush, do you? Then get ready for the intense heat of purification.

Third, a burning bush always ends with a pressing assignment. God told Moses that he had seen and heard the misery of Israel’s slavery, which he would now do something about. (Exodus 3:7-9) And the kicker to this announcement was that Moses was going to be at the tip of the Divine spear when God dealt with Israel’s cruel Egyptian taskmasters. So you want a burning bush, too! Good—get ready to be God’s chosen instrument in solving the problem that produced the visitation in the first place.

When God appears, it is to reveal his kingdom plans, not just to make us feel good or give us a warm, fuzzy spiritual high. No, when God shows up, the encounter will fuel us for the grand kingdom assignment to which we have been assigned.

Still want a burning bush?  Yeah—that’s what I thought: You still do!  So do I.

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Reflect and Apply:  Desiring a burning bush experience is a great thing; we just need to be aware of the great demands such a desire might place upon us.  The reward of being visited by God is and will always be tempered by the demands of being used by God. As Frederick Buechner said, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” So go ahead, ask God for an uncommon encounter.  He may just grant your request.