Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites our of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11)
After forty years tending sheep on the back side of the desert, God was now ready to use Moses to deliver His people out of bondage in Egypt. Moses started well with this response after God called to him, “Here I am.” But after God told Moses His plan to make him the divine deliverer of God’s people, Moses began to exchange God’s use for his excuse. Let’s take a look and I promise you will be as comforted as you are challenged to answer whatever call God has placed in your life today.
When Moses said, “Who am I . . .” he was speaking truth about the fact that he was not qualified for God’s call in his life to do anything, at least from his perspective. Forty years earlier, when Moses was in the court of Pharaoh, he killed an Egyptian slave master who was beating a Hebrew slave. When what Moses did was exposed, he fled Egypt and spent the next forty years as a shepherd in Midian.
God knew who Moses was. God knew how Moses tried, in his way and his timing, to free his countrymen from slavery in Egypt, but he did it the wrong way – in his own strength rather than the strength of the Almighty. Yet, here is God calling Moses into His service to deliver His people out of bondage to slavery. Here is one of the greatest comforts we find throughout sacred Scripture: God sees past our past all the way to our current potential as an instrument of usefulness in His mighty right hand. And the same is true for me and you.
Have you ever wondered why God chooses to use such messed up people in His service? It’s because that is all He has to work with. We are all messed up. We are all sinners with a past that would shame us all if those closest to us knew what God knows about us. Yet, in His magnificent mercy God raises us out of the pit of our sinful past and into His promised plan and purpose for our lives. And that is why God refused to accept Moses excuse that he was not good enough to answer God’s call. Yes, it is true, Moses was not good enough in his own strength, but in the strength of the Almighty he was more than good enough, he was God’s ordained instrument of usefulness. By the way, Moses made a few more excuses and God simply took Moses from excuse to use, and that is exactly what God wants to do in each of our lives.
So, have you answered God’s call in your life today? Remember, God knows everything about your past and still wants to use you in the present for two simple reasons, His glory and your ultimate good.
This is the Gospel. This is grace for your race. NEVER FORGET THAT . . . AMEN!
Grace for the Race 