11.05.07 – RE:ading: Exodus 8:16-9.7

RE:flect

Are you a distinctive person in your life. When are you the only Christian in the room? Having a meal at home? Biology? The lunch table? Work? Now the Jews were a distinct people. They followed in the line of Abraham and had a promise given. But God also is making them a distinct people. Ultimately we can do a few things that make us different, unique, holy (as in separated). But God is the ultimate mover of things, and the one who will use his power to separate us as if we were living, while others dying.

Do you enjoy living in the land of Goshen? Do you have a special place that you reside in (not physically…). Do you live your life like a foreigner, stranger, traveler just passing through? One of the themes of the Old Testament is a separated group (culture, people) that would hold the blood line of the Messiah. Now that Jesus the Messiah (the Christ, the anointed one, the deliverer) has come – it is like we have been released from being contained in Jerusalem and the Church of Christ is called to take “Goshen” (our heavenly lifestyle on earth) to all.

And we should be different. We should be the ones who DON”T watch the “SAW marathon” and fill our minds with images of gore, of the things that warriors in Iraq wish they could forget. We should not be the one to add to the selfish culture of your school, we should look out for others in our school and even see it as a “PRIVILEGE” to be seen as a loser—if that is what it takes to treat everyone equally. Jesus hung out with the losers (the prostitutes, beggars, lepers, drunkards, tax collectors and the rejects)… and you know what… he enjoyed it… he was proud to be rejected by the religious and the non religious as a fool.

RE:act

Tell you what… here is the challenge – do what you can, with what you know, and let God begin to work in your life to deal “differently” with your life also—to make you distinct and an example before everyone of who his is (Exodus 8:22a). Are you will to lose and let go of all in order to bring God glory? Perhaps being willing to let everyone go is the pre-requisite to actually being able to keep it as a steward and not an owner!

RE:ply

God, you are God Alone! You are awesome. You have created, you rule and you have delivered. You desire to be known, loved, worshiped. You desire to walk in the garden with Adam, to rescue and preserve those who find favor in your eyes.

Lord, may I find favor in your eyes.

Lord, may I find a land that I have not earned, deserved, perhaps ridiculed and misunderstood. May I enjoy the “Goshen” that we live in here on earth waiting for our true promise land and the new Jerusalem to be revealed.

Lord, make me whatever you wish, take me wherever you wish, Glorify yourself through me.

Lord Jesus, I love and thank you. I want to know you more, and to make your life known to more. I want to be like you. I want to be the best friend to some, and an easy target for others.

Lord, I not only place my dreams and possessions, my life, in your hands. I wish for you to take anything away that is holding me back.

“ Dear friends, I urge you as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires with ware against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though the accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.” (I Peter 2:11-12)