Day 31: Exodus 4-6

Welcome to Five Minute Bible, your daily guide for your daily reading. Today is January 31st and we will be covering

Exodus 4 -6. Now today's reading moves us from divine calling into human weakness and public confrontation.

Exodus 4 -6 shows what happens when God's clear command collides with human fear and insecurity and resistance.

Moses has been called by God, but he does not feel ready, capable, or even worthy.

And the story refuses to hide that tension. What follows is not the tale of instant courage, but it's the holiness of God insisting upon obedience from a deeply reluctant servant.

Now Exodus 4 opens with Moses pushing back against the call of God. He questions his credibility and his credentials, his ability to speak, and he even questions

God's wisdom in choosing him. Now God responds with patience and with signs and with firm resolve, reminding

Moses that the issue is not Moses's ability, but God's presence. Yet before the mission even advances, the narrative halts with a sobering moment.

God confronts Moses over covenant disobedience. Before God is going to use Moses, Moses must align his life with the covenant and in a very strange scene, his wife

Zipporah intervenes and Moses is spared as the foreskin of their children is thrown down upon his feet.

If you'll remember in the covenant, you're supposed to circumcise your boys. Moses is going to be the covenant leader, therefore he must be covenant obedient.

The message is clear. God's work cannot be led forward casually. The deliverer must take

God's covenant seriously. Now Exodus 5 records Moses's first public act of obedience and it appears to fail completely.

Pharaoh rejects the Lord outright and increases Israel's labor and consequences and punishment and the people turn on Moses.

What Moses hoped would bring relief actually brings greater suffering instead and Moses cries out to God in both confusion and despair.

Exodus 6 answers that despair with divine reassurance. God reasserts his covenant promises.

He reveals his holy name more fully and he reminds Moses that redemption rests not on human strength or striving or momentum but on God's unbreakable word.

The mission does not move forward because Moses finally believes in himself but because God remains faithful to what he said and what he's promised.

Now as you read today, ask yourself the following question. Why does God so often choose people who feel unworthy or even incapable of being used?

Now as you read today, I want you to ask yourself the following question. Why does God so often choose people who feel unworthy?

And Exodus 4 confronts us with a God who doesn't wait for us to gain our confidence or polish or self -assurance.

He chooses the foolish things of this world to shame the wise. He calls hesitant servants. He exposes our weakness and then he insists on using us even in spite of it.

Not because we are sufficient but because he's getting across the message that only he is.

And that's the central pattern of Exodus 4 -6 is God's power working through human inadequacy.

Moses is not bold. He's not eager. He doesn't feel qualified and yet God refuses to withdraw the call.

Obedience in this way doesn't remove Moses' fear nor does it immediately improve the situation.

In fact, obedience makes things worse for him and for everyone before things even get better.

And this presses directly into our life today. Many believers assume that God only uses the confident, the gifted, or the spiritually impressive and Exodus destroys that illusion.

God regularly chooses people who feel overwhelmed, who feel hesitant, who feel deeply anxious and aware of their own limitations.

Not to shame them but to showcase his work doesn't rest on human competence. Faithfulness is not the absence of fear, it is the obedience in the presence of it.

And these chapters, with that in mind, point unmistakably to Jesus Christ.

Moses is a reluctant mediator, slow to speak, and burdened by all of his weaknesses but Christ comes as the true and perfect mediator.

Obedient without hesitation, faithful without failure. Where Moses recoils from his calling,

Christ, for the joy set before him, embraced it and owned it. Moses stands between Pharaoh and Israel pleading for their release.

Christ stands between God and a greater enemy which is Satan, sin, and death, securing redemption through his own blood.

And where Moses' obedience initially brings increased suffering for all, Christ's obedience brings peace between God and man for all who follow him.

Exodus 4 -6 teaches us that God saves through weakness not through strength. And that pattern reaches its fulfillment in Jesus whose power is made perfect through weakness.

So with that, as you read Exodus 4 -6 today, notice that God does not replace Moses when he falters, he corrects him, he strengthens him, and he presses him forward.

And the confrontation with Pharaoh has only begun. Tomorrow, God's power will escalate and Egypt will learn that resistance to the

Lord only magnifies his glory. And with that, read your Bible carefully, devotionally, and joyfully.

And may the Lord use his word to sanctify you completely and we will continue our journey tomorrow.