Obedience // Moses

Moses is probably my favourite character in the Bible. He's such a cool guy!! Whenever I read his story I seem to get more and more little nuggets of information from it. And while reading it this week, I realised something;

Moses was obedient. 

But only to God. 

Moses was raised an Egyptian under Pharaoh's care, but turned away from his life of luxury when he realised that the Israelites, Gods chosen people, were being treated badly by the Egyptians. He turned away from all her knew to go and serve God.

Moses obeyed God when it was difficult, like when God asked him to asked him to go back to Egypt and speak to Pharaoh. He obeyed God when he had doubts about himself, like he had when God told him he was going to lead the Israelites. And most importantly, he obeyed God when the task ahead seemed impossible, like crossing the Red Sea. 

Every time Moses obeyed God, it had a positive effect on him, his faith, and his relationship with God. 

I pray that we can all have the strength and courage to stand up for God, to obey Jesus and follow the plan He has for us, even when it seems like the impossible thing to-do. 

Obedience // Abraham and Isaac

Our new topic for the next few weeks is obedience. Throughout this topic we will look at people in the bible, if they were obedient to God or not and what the consequences of their actions were.

So to start lets look at what obedience actually means.

First of all obedience is not negative, as you might think it is.
It doesn't mean to be passive, to just sit back, do nothing and let anything happen.
Obedience is a noun, it's a doing word.
It's something we are completely active in, it's one of the biggest life choices every one makes. And it's a choice everyone makes daily.
Most importantly, to be obedient is to love and to trust someone.

On to the first example of obedience we're going to look at in the bible:
Abraham and Isaac.

Found here in Genesis chapter 22, our story starts with a dialogue between Abraham and God. God calls Abraham and asks him to take his son - his only son - and sacrifice him as a burnt offering.
Now, in our bibles before we read this there is a little heading that says

'Abraham tested'

or words to that effect. So before we get to the bit about God wanting Abraham to kill his son we know in the end it's all probably going to be okay. Abraham didn't have this little heading for reassurance, he just had a command - that he followed.

As we read on we see that the next morning Abraham set out to the place God told him to go and after three days of travelling he leaves his servants and takes Isaac up to the place where God wants him to sacrifice his son.

In verse 6 we read that Abraham carried the fire(?!) and the knife while Isaac carried the wood on his back - this is very important.

Now, it's about at this point Isaac starts to get a bit suspicious of his dad. 

He says, 'Father? We have the wood, the fire and the knife for the burnt offering.... but where is the lamb?' 

Abraham answers with one of my favourite quotes 'God will provide a lamb for the offering'. 

Once they got to the top Abraham (somehow) tied up Isaac and laid him on the altar ready to sacrifice him. 

Abraham took out the knife, he got ready to kill his only son for God when suddenly,

'Abraham, Abraham'

A voice from heaven called out. 

'Don't hurt the boy. Now I know you fear God because you have not withheld me from your son, your only son.'

Then Abraham looked up and saw that God provided a lamb for Abraham so that he didn't have to sacrifice his son. 

Abraham was obedient to God, and because Abraham was obedient God helped Abraham and saved Isaac. He even provided a lamb that would be killed in Isaac's place! 

God even further blesses Abraham when later on in the same chapter he says that he will make Abraham's descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore, and that his descendants would be prosperous. 

It's great to see how Abraham's obedience paid off, but could you be this obedient if God asked you to?

Like Disney's Frozen, we're everywhere!

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