December 3

God calls us to represent him in this fallen world not because we are able but because He is.

Moses is living as a fugitive in the wilderness because he had killed an Egyptian taskmaster. But God has plans for Moses. God has chosen Moses to be his tool of redeeming power. He is calling Moses back to Egypt to stand before Pharaoh and demand the release of all the Israelite slaves (Ex. 3). Put yourself in Moses’s shoes. Would you be excited about going back to Egypt? Would you feel confident to stand before the most powerful ruler of the world and demand that he free a group of people that was a major element in his nation’s economic engine?

In this moment, Moses does what we often do when God calls us. We compare our natural gifts and abilities to the size of the task, to gauge whether we are capable of doing what God has called us to do. God doesn’t call us because we have, in ourselves, every- thing we need to accomplish what he’s calling us to do. No, he calls weak and broken people to do huge and important things because is able. He is with us, and he empowers us to do what he wills for us to do. Every one of God’s commands is accompanied by his empowering grace. Exodus 4 records how God demonstrates his power to fearful Moses to assure him that he will go down to Egypt and stand before Pharaoh not in his own power, but in the awesome power of the King of kings and the Lord of lords.

But Moses isn’t easy to convince. God says, “I can even turn the waters of the Nile into blood as a demonstration of my power before Pharaoh” (see Ex. 4:9). Moses responds, “I am not eloquent . . . I am slow of speech and of tongue” (4:10). God says, “Moses, I created your mouth. I am the Lord, and I will go with you and teach you what to say” (see Ex. 4:11–12). I love this picture of the patience of the Lord, working to take Moses’s eyes off himself and onto the majestic power of his God. Sadly, Moses responds, “Oh, my Lord, please send someone else” (4:13).

God calls husbands, wives, parents, workers, neighbors, friends, university students, the young, and the old to represent him in this dark world. He calls average people to do things that are anything but average. Is there a place in your life where you are responding, “Oh, Lord, please send someone else”?

Another person was later called to provide redemption from slavery, this time the slavery to sin. His name was Jesus. His call was not just to speak but to die, so that we could know freedom as the children of God. It is in the power of his redeeming grace that we are able to say yes to the call of God, because we know Jesus’s death and resurrection guarantee just the grace we need to do what God has called us to do at just the time we need it. In him weak and fearful people are made able, and that’s very good news.