Friday 12th June - You'll never walk alone

Exodus 3:9-12 (NIVUK)
9 And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. 10 So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.’ 11 But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’  12 And God said, ‘I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you[a] will worship God on this mountain.’
 
Jacob went with his family to Egypt, generations passed and God honoured the promise to make his descendants into a nation there. However a king came to the throne who was ignorant of the history of Joseph and the Hebrews and how they came to be in Egypt and he feared them greatly. The answer was to enslave the entire Hebrew population of Egypt. In their suffering they cried out to God who heard their cry and saw their suffering and took action. That was in sending a deliverer to free them from slavery and bring them to the home God had promised. That deliverer was Moses, but I expect you see the parallels with Jesus.
Moses of course had a history in Egypt, a Hebrew child, he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter in a basket by the river and raised as her own within the palace. He had killed an Egyptian overseer who was beating a slave and had fled as he thought and hoped to a life of obscurity in the desert of Midian. He would soon learn that there was no fleeing from God or escaping his reach when he was called from the burning bush to return to Egypt and lead the Israelites out. To encourage him God gave the promise of 3:12 “I will be with you” but for reasons of his own continued to make excuses to God until God became angry and he, Moses eventually conceded. 

As believers we are commissioned by Jesus to carry the gospel as witness for him into the world at home or abroad, in our families, in our work places, to neighbours, or in response to a specific call. That may fill us with trepidation or uncertainty, we may feel unworthy or ill equipped but what we must not forget is that God equips us for those tasks and gives us help through the ministry of his Holy Spirit. Above all we have the promise of Jesus, “surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age. Matthew 28:20. It is natural and right that we should test our sense of call and consider our gifting for the task but we should never doubt the ability and the intention of Jesus to go with us and of God the Holy Spirit to fit us for his work.
 
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