Author: missionspaul

Decisions
Acts 7:23

“When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites.”

Stephen is presuming Moses age, even though it doesn’t actually say in the Bible. What it does say is that Moses was 120yrs of age when he died. We see in verses 23,30,36 that his life was thought to have been divided up into 40 year periods, fitting his age at death nicely. But again Luke writing this must be going according to what was the traditional thought.

When he was 40yrs of age, he made a decision.

There are times in our lives, landmark moments whether that be our age, or an anniversary of some event, or a success or completion of something, or the children have come onto the scene or they have left the scene that a decision may be waiting to be made.
I remember a friend on the completion of her divorce wrote a few “things to do” and then set about doing those things, she has never looked back.

Is there a decision waiting for you?
Can you plot your decisive age moments.?
What do you want to have achieved by the next decade?
When your circumstance changes what decision will you then make?

Above all keep making decisions because they open doors for you that may otherwise have remain closed.

Education
Acts 7: 22

“Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.”

Mind, voice and behaviour, Moses grew powerfully.
Yesterday I spoke with a fiend who told me her 74 year old father was studying history with Open University and had achieved 84% for his latest essay. How amazing that! You are never too old to learn!
The education of Moses was part of God’s plan.
The growing intelligence of Moses was what God wanted.
Though we know he had a stammer, Moses could use words. He was also the person for making things happen. He learnt and grew in all these things. Someone taught him and he studied.
We don’t often think of these years as being part of his destiny. We often overlook it as being a boring section of his life.
But it is definitely as important for God and Moses as at any other period of his life.
And so for us.
Today you have an opportunity to learn, to grow with wisdom in words and ability. Embrace your life. Read, listen, discuss, draw from every conversation and learn. Never stop learning.
You will not know what is ahead of you but prepare yourself in mind speech and ability. You will end up drawing on these moments that’s for sure.

Outside
Acts 7: 21

“When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.”

Are you outside?
Left to one side?
Maybe you are not in employment, you feel left out. You have done all the applications, done the round of interviews but still you cannot secure a job.
Maybe you have been dumped. A horrible word. But that’s how you feel. He/she walked out on you. Or maybe they didn’t, maybe they still live with you, but a long time ago you started to feel on the outside.
Maybe the church put you outside. You did not fit their accepted practices. Their rule book meant you had to leave.
Maybe you escaped. Maybe like Moses there was no alternative. You had to go out and you have yet to come back in.
Maybe you simply do not feel you belong anywhere.
I am trying to think of all the scenarios, there are so many, but you have been placed outside.
What happens next?
I have found that the most unusual and shocking things can take place. The people you least expect. The people that some may say should not be 10 feet near you come to your aid.
Never reject those who help you on the outside for you may be rejecting angels.
Pharaohs daughter!
The daughter of the killer has now taken Moses inside. He is now living and growing up in the killers house!
Sometimes you have to be thrown out to get into the place where God destined you to be.
So be thankful for those who are your friends now. For those who love you now. No, it’s not perfect. It is not what you may have thought would happen. The story is crazy. But it is not over and one day you will look back and be thankful that the Author of your life knew what to do when you were placed outside.

Moses was born

Acts 7: 20
“At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house.”

Pharaoh can never cull everything. There is always a broken reed that is not removed. There is always a smouldering wick not snuffed out. There is always a Moses. A survivor will always be found. You may be beaten up on the side of the road of life half-dead but definitely half alive too. You may think this is the worst time of your life but you do not realise that at this same time something new is emerging. In the death there is life. It looks perhaps like an end but there is a beginning.
And this is something very different to what was previously known. This is no ordinary moment. This has the potential to be one of the most inspirational moments of your life. This could even be the redeeming of what has been lost before. This will bring a time of knowing the voice of God more, perhaps of experiencing His presence in an unquestionable way and maybe this will take you on a whole new journey, a new chapter has begun.
Moses was born.
What you can do now is to take care of this moment. Don’t throw this moment away. Don’t ignore it and don’t boast of it either. Let it be hidden for awhile for the moment will come and the world will see.
Moses was born.
For us a child was born, Jesus. He is with you. It is never over. It may be hell and death may be all around but He is the resurrection. He is crafting a new chapter. Take care of your faith. Look after it. For from this faith impossibilities can come.

The Cull.

Acts 7:19
“He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die.”

The enemy of your life will always try and cut off your future.
The new Pharaoh wanted to stop a rising generation. He wanted to end the people of God by decreasing its population. So a cull was put in place.
A cull in animal terms is to remove in order to control the population.
Your Pharaoh wants to control your output. He doesn’t mind you focusing on maintaining what you have. He doesn’t mind the Church having and building their shiny Jerusalems and spending all their time within it. What Pharaoh doesn’t want is for you to leave your Jerusalem. He wants you focused on faithfulness as being the most important thing over that of output, of results. A faithful farmer will be a hungry faithful farmer if he has no harvest. No more souls saved, that is the aim of the Pharaoh and he will do whatever is needed to make sure that happens.
Where are the young people? Are you mentoring them? Do you have hope for tomorrow? Will your work carry on when you are not here anymore? Have you passed anything to the next generation? Hard questions maybe. Here is the toughest: has Pharaoh started a cull on your life?

What do you do when no one wants to know you?
Acts 7: 18

“Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt.”

Joseph was about to move from being well-known to unknown.

For any missionary one of the difficult times can be when their sending Pastor moves on and a new Pastor who does not know them arrives at the Church.
I remember a short while back a new Pastor of a church called me to say how they had to stop the funding of a missionary previously sent out by the outgoing Pastor because finances were tight and because the new Pastor didn’t share the vision for that country or project.
That was a tough time for that missionary.

I was only telling someone yesterday how one of our missionaries was taking off the membership list by a new Pastor because they hadn’t been in attendance at the church for 6 months which broke the church policy for membership. Quite hard to do when you are a missionary thousands of miles away!

Thankfully the majority of new Pastors are not like the two above!

But how do you handle things when change happens.
When all that you had, enjoyed and benefited from is no longer a guarantee and more than that is definitely going to be taken away.
How do you cope when you move from being known to not known?
Some people who retire in leadership roles struggle the most.
Some leaders who have to let go of their positions because of sickness fear not being known.
No one talks about it, but it is true, for some.

When man no longer knows you, or wants to know you, what do you do?

How you handle this depends on whether your identity is wrapped in the opinion and observation of man towards you.
If all that matters to you is that you are known in heaven by a God who loves you as a son and daughter, then when man no longer knows you, it is not a problem for you. You are still known. By One who is far more significant!

The next move of God
Acts 7:17
“As the time drew near for God to fulfil his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased.”

When the time draws near to the move of God two things can appear:
The situation can become even more difficult.
The situation can become more obvious for what He will do.
Both situations can be wrong in their predictions.

God’s people had been increasing in number dramatically. If God was going to get them out then this was looking more and more unlikely. Evacuating twelve families perhaps but to lead millions is another things altogether.

However if the thought was that God was going to powerfully work through His people and they were going to overcome the Egyptian army and defeat them then increasing in size was not only good and necessary but it was also a sign that He was going to do this amazing thing anytime soon.

Of course, we know the story. We know that the answer was and is never found in the size of a population or the skill and expertise of man.
The answer is in the timing of God. Often the story is only truly known as we look back. Much of the story is walked by faith and you have no clue of when God will move or how He will do it.

So take your eyes off what appears too difficult but also “it’s obvious” should not be given too much attention either. Get your eyes back on God and wait. He is a God of surprises.

The past will cost
Acts 7:16
“Their bodies were brought back to Shechem and placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money.”

Shechem was a very important Biblical site. It was the place where Abraham received the promise of blessing.

Whatever you bury will cost you.
If you carry the body to the grave it will cost you the pain of deaths final realisation that life will never be the same again.
If you have a place where you honour your past and those who have gone before you it will cost you the pride of the present achievement.
If you come back to the beginning it will cost you the advancing into new future experiences.

I’m speaking of spiritual funerals. I’m thinking of lessons from the past. I’m thinking of the very real need to let go but not forget. Honour the living learn from the dead. I’m thinking about going back to the promises of old. To revisit isn’t wrong.
But all of this will cost you.
It is worth the cost.

Remembering the yesterday people.
Acts 7:15
“Then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died.”

Jacob and his sons including Joseph all died in Egypt. The Israelites went into Canaan after they had died. The generation didn’t see Canaan but they were part of the Canaan story. In fact, Canaan would never have happened if they hadn’t lived and died in Egypt.

Alan, Doris, Tony, Elizabeth, Steve, Terry, Zena, Margaret, Ken, Roy, Betty, Gladys, Fred, Vera, Mary, Mrs Lawes (I only referred to her by her surname!). I buried all these people and more in the past. The Church where I Pastored saw more moves of God after they died than before and they still do.
However, they were all part of the story. If they had not lived, if they had not served in the Church, then the story would have been much different.

Think today of those who have died. But how they influenced you and the story of your life, of your Church.
Make an effort to keep their story alive. For it is not only about now that counts. Sometimes I listen to people or read things on Facebook about some latest development as if it was the creation of the world that had taken place in that evening service. Though I am the first to rejoice in such moves of God and we certainly need them, perspective is needed. Honour the past. Now could never exist without yesterday.
Who do you remember?

Get to the main point
Acts 7:14
“After this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, seventy- five in all.”

Now I wouldn’t normally use this verse to write a devotion on Easter Sunday but as you know we are going through Acts so we are sticking with it!

This verse doesn’t look contentious, but it really is. Muslims and atheists use this as evidence that the Bible is in error.

Genesis 46:26-27 There was seventy.
Exodus 1: 5 There was seventy.
Deuteronomy 10:22 There was seventy.
Acts 7:14 Stephen says there was seventy-five.

So which is it, 70 or 75?

There are many suggestions of how Stephens numbering could get to 75 with the inclusion of 5 others.
Luke who is recording this certainly doesn’t adjust Stephens speech in order to make it in line with the Old Testament. He leaves the anomaly there.
Whatever the reason it is showing that God was going to build a big nation from a small number and that’s the point.

Back to Easter Sunday. As the above is useful.
Each gospel writer tells a different story but the point remains the same: Jesus was resurrected.
Yes atheists and Muslims dispute it.
But the stories are consistent.
Even under persecution the apostles never changed the story.
People cannot make up such an event and get away with it.
The gap between the resurrection and the story being written is very short in comparison to other undisputed historical events that have 10 times the gap.
There may have different parts of the story bring focused upon and that gives us a more fuller picture. However what is the point?
Jesus was raised from the grave. That’s the point.
The next question is the most important:
What does that mean for me?