The Only You

Sunday, ‎January ‎22, ‎2023

Good morning, Lord

Verse of the Day: Exodus 4:11 The Lord said to him(Moses), “Who gave human beings their mouths? Who makes them deaf or mute? Who gives them sight or makes them blind? Is it not I, the Lord? 12 Now go; I will help you speak and will teach you what to say.”

Memory verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Readings: EXODUS 4-6 MATTHEW 14:22-36

The Only You There Is

There is only one you. No one else can be you . No one can do what you do the way you do it. This is God's way.

Thirty odd years ago, my wife, in the heat of labor, reached up and grabbed my shirt and said through her clenched teeth, "I'm not doing this, I'm going home!"

"No one else can do this but you-you're the only one who can have this baby", I said. The hormones and the pain and the stress can make expectant mothers irrationally forceful.(And all the men who have been there said, "Amen".)

God told Moses to go to Pharaoh and demand the release of the nation of Israel and Moses used every excuse he could think of.

"What if I'm not believable?"

"What if they don't listen"

"I'm slow in speech and tongue"(I'm not good on my feet in front of a crowd-I'm not quick to think of clever things to say.)

Back up-in spite of what Moses looked like-the fact he was a shepherd-we must remember that Moses was reared in the very house of the Pharaoh of Egypt-the king of that world. No expense had been spared in his education. He had lived royally until he killed an Egyptian with his hands. Moses had never lived as a Jew until he ran away and started herding sheep for his father-in-law.

But God had plans for Moses-only Moses could be the leader God chose. There was only one Moses. God even gave him a helper, Aaron, but there was only one Moses.

There is only one of each of us. You are it. No other person can do the things you do because that is whom God has made you.

Excuses? God has heard them all. Jesus heard them, too.

"I am rich, I can't do that"...(the idea of the highest high)

"I must go bury my father"...(grief, the lowest low)

So, from the highest to the lowest, excuses are still excuses. Call them what they are and why.

Why? Fear, reluctance, laziness-free will-"I want to control my own destiny", "Fate says I must go the other way".

(Fate and destiny are not Biblical ideas.)

I grew up in an old house built on a foundation of wooden piers. They were pieces of a bois d'arc tree trunk. As good as these were, they were still just a substitute for solid rock or concrete. That type of wood does not rot but it will still sink into the earth they sit on.

Excuses can take you all the way to the end of your life and make you look good while it happens-but-what a miserable end.

What God wants for you in your life is not an excuse-it is the real thing. The solid rock will not sink-there is nothing to sink into. The Lord calls and wants us to answer. But go ahead, make excuses as Moses did. God may not turn your staff into a snake and back again but He will turn you into what He wants...

...and what a joyful, peaceful, complete life...and end...

...because He loves us...

Father in Heaven,

I confess, I have used excuses a lot-they are simply lies. Help me follow you from here on for Your glory and kingdom.

Great God of complete plans!

In the name of Christ Jesus,

Amen