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Jacob and his family joined Joseph in Egypt and celebrated his success and promotion there. With the permission of the king, Joseph allocated a place for them, along with their livestock to live.
Joseph and all his brothers and the generation that moved to Egypt died. The Israelites were fruitful and multiplied greatly and became exceedingly numerous so that the land was filled with them.
A new king who did not know about Joseph came to power in Egypt. He reasoned that with the great population of the Israelites, it would be risky to have that number of foreigners in Egypt who can eventually join with their enemies and fight against them.
He came up with a plan to enslave and oppress them with forced labor. However, the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread.
The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out. Their cry for help went up to God. and He remembered the covenant He had with their ancestors.
Moses was tending the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law and he came to Horeb, the mountain of God.
God appeared to him in a burning bush and told him that He had seen the misery of the people in Egypt and He was concerned about their suffering and the way the Egyptians were oppressing them.
He instructed Moses to go to Pharaoh and request him to let the Israelites out of Egypt.
Moses questioned his qualifications and ability to go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt.
God told him to go in His name and He will be with him.
The people cried out to God and God called out to Moses to go and lead the people.
Moses was hesitant to go back to Egypt maybe because of his past act of murder that caused him to run away from Egypt.
He also questioned his ability to speak and to lead.
God said to Moses, “go and I will be with you. The elders of Israel will listen to you”.
In response to his lack of eloquence, God told him “ I will help both Aaron and you to speak and will teach you what to do.”
Moses went back to Egypt and he and Aaron brought together the elders and told them everything that the Lord had said. The people believed the message and when they heard that the Lord was concerned about them and had seen their misery, they bowed down and worshipped.
How is God leading you and what is He saying to you about collaborating with Him and participating with His people in the deliverance process?
The post The Deliverance of God appeared first on Roy Benjamin.
One of the main features of most cameras is the focus button. This is designed to bring the target person, area or thing into sharp view and allow the photographer to concentrate on it and make it the central part of the image.
The writer to the Hebrews had this thought in mind when he encourages us in Hebrews 3:1 to fix our thoughts on Jesus. He urges us to fully concentrate on Jesus.
It is natural for the human mind to be straying and wandering and our thoughts become scattered.
It requires discipline and will power to focus. The mind is powerful and can be a tremendous tool if we can control it and get it to work in our best interest.
We may start out thinking about a particular issue or project and we begin framing it and putting it together. Somewhere in the middle of this thought process, we get distracted, and our thoughts shift to something else that has no relevance to the matter at hand.
It is easy during our group Bible studies or devotional times to fix our thoughts on Jesus. It only takes one email or phone call to shift our thoughts. We go off in a completely opposite direction.
There is a constant battle for our thoughts. We are busy people; we are task oriented and try to get things done and meet deadlines.
It is during these times that the lens gets blurred, and we lose focus.
The writer knew that those tendencies exist, so he continued his exhortation in Ch 12:1-2:
Let us throw off everything that hinders. Let us run with patience. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus.
Why do we do this? He clarifies it in vs 3 – “so that you will not grow weary and lose heart”.
As we get strung out with stuff, fatigue sets in. We get faint and weary, and life becomes a struggle, and we would like to give up.
The way to deal with the things we face, is to focus our thoughts on Jesus, focus our eyes on Jesus.
The writer ends Hebrews Ch 12 with this exhortation: Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and worship God acceptably.
Let us look forward and stay focused.
The post The Focus Factor appeared first on Roy Benjamin.
We often hear the phrase “strength in numbers” and it is used in the sense that the more people you have, the greater the chances are of succeeding or winning.
The question arises, how much does it take to win?
Gideon gathered over thirty thousand men to prepare for battle against the Midianites. You would think that would be a formidable military force to go out to battle against a people who had been harassing and oppressing Israel.
God however, said to Gideon, “you have too many men for me to deliver Midian into their hands”. A trained military leader who had done the research and put together a tactical plan would counter that and reply that the numbers weren’t enough to fight the invading army. The strategic thinking is that the more men you have, the greater are your chances for victory.
God had another strategy, and His reason was that if that force went out to battle and won, they would take the credit and boast that they had won the battle in their own strength.
What God was saying to Gideon is that “the battle belongs to me.”
He got them to reduce the numbers by challenging those who were fearful to return home. Twenty-two thousand men returned, leaving ten thousand.
The Lord then said, “there are still too many”. After a further elimination test, three hundred men remained. God instructed Gideon to go down to the camp of the Midianites for He had given it into their hands.
The battle was won with three hundred men and God.
How large is your group? how many people do you have? Whatever the size of your group, God can use you mightily and help you to overcome and win the battle.
There’s strength in small numbers.
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Jesus selected some disciples to be with Him in His ministry. They came from different backgrounds and had different skill sets and gifts. One thing that they had in common is that they were kingdom people.
Jesus took them aside to the mountainside to have a time of sharing and teaching. He revealed to them what kingdom people were like. He was very clear that this had nothing to do with qualifications, earnings, giftings or talent. It was all about quality of character. He was stating the characteristics of people who were of His kingdom.
He told them that they were the salt of the earth and that their purpose was to affect the world and infuse the flavor and essence of godliness and Christlikeness which is the standard quality of kingdom people, into the world.
He made it clear that as the salt of the earth, they were to maintain their saltiness in a world that was bland and tasteless and had lost its flavor.
Salt has a deep and lasting effect on anything it touches. Not only does it give flavor, but it has a preserving effect that enables that to which it is attached to be preserved and endure. Salt gives life and vigor to that which is ordinary and bland.
The purpose of salt is to invigorate and lift that which is otherwise dull and lack taste. Kingdom people are the salt of the earth. What salt is to food, kingdom people is to the place where they live, work and play. Jesus gave the disciples another characteristic of who kingdom people is.
He told them, “You are the light of the world”. “Let your light shine so bright that people can see your light and good deeds and praise your Father in heaven. You must illuminate the place where you are. Do not hide your lamp under a shade or cover it up. Let it shine brightly. Your light must stand out. It must be in a place where everyone can see it and benefit from it.
The world is full of darkness and people are lost, lonely and in despair. No one likes to be in darkness. The only light that the world will get is the light we share. Kingdom people are salt and light. Can we have some saltshakers and light posts?
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Solomon is the wisest man that ever lived. His wisdom was a gift from God and he has passed it to us for our understanding and edification. Let us take heed to his words of wisdom
We live in a cocky, self-confident culture where we think we know everything and can do everything. This produces a thought pattern that we got it and can figure it out, so we do not need to pray. Prayer is mainly used as a get out of trouble card when we’re stuck in a rut, […]
The scene was pathetic; a sight which would have made any hospice, infirmary, nursing home or hospital look like a vacation home. In Jerusalem, by the sheep gate, there was a pool called Bethesda which in Hebrew meant House of Mercy. The pool had five porches and a great multitude of impotent, blind, halt and […]
There were five thousand people on the mountainside who had come to hear Jesus teach. According to Matthew’s account of the story, the session had gone on for a very long time with miracles, teaching and worship. The people were hungry and they had nothing to eat. They were not near to any restaurants, cafes […]
Have you ever been working at a task that was physically demanding and after you’ve been at it for a while, you get tired and cannot go on any more? Your body shuts down and you do not have the stamina or strength to continue and you must stop right where you are. In 1 […]
We are living in a time when everyone has something to say. We all have opinions and we want them to be heard. People are angry and yelling at each other and they are saying crazy things. The Bible gives us clear guidelines for our communication and conversations. James gives us some good advice: My […]
It was the last and greatest day of the Jewish Festival of Tabernacles and Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice “Let everyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (John 7:37 NIV). This was a contrast to the Jewish teachers who were always seated when teaching and spoke with soft voices. […]
Things were heating up for the apostles as they went about spreading the message of their risen Lord. People were responding to the message and being converted and this was disturbing to King Herod so he started to persecute the leadership of the movement, hoping this would instill fear in the disciples and shut down […]
The background of this story is set during a war between Syria and Israel where the Syrians targeted the city of Samaria, blocked all means of getting supplies into the city and choked the economy which resulted in a food shortage. The strategy was a means to create uncertainty and instability within the city that […]