3.098 And Moses... Did The Thing

In Matthew 5, Jesus calls us the salt of the earth and the light of the world, reminding us that our lives are meant to preserve, illuminate, and point others to Him. This season on Savory Salt, we'll walk through the Old Testament, one verse and one thought each day. Perhaps these moments will add greater savor and brighter light to our lives as we seek to truly live as Savory Salt.

Hello, my friends. It's a new day with new opportunities. Choose this day whom you will serve.

If you want to be like Moses, clap your hands. If you want to be like Moses, clap your hands. Okay, I promise I'm not going to keep doing it this way, but I thought these episodes would be a fun one back to back as we look at the differences in Moses and Pharaoh.

We are reading this week Exodus chapters 7 through 13, and those are probably the only two episodes today and yesterday where you will hear me sing or at least attempt to sing. So that done. That was fun.

Inside of our conversation here, as we're reading, it occurred to me that while we may all have some Pharaoh in us, we may also have times where we've got some Moses in us as well. And so while these two are the key players, we also have Aaron inside of this, and he's playing with Moses as well, which is great. But I wanted to focus on the way that the text reads here inside of these chapters.

Yes, we could go into each of the issues, right? Each of the plagues that come. But instead, what I wanted to focus on is the way that Moses reacts to the word of the Lord.

Our example there comes from Exodus chapter 9 verse 23. Now, while I just picked this verse, there's many of them inside of these chapters that you could use as this example. So as you're doing this reading, look for this, maybe even put a link in your scriptures.

I like to tag my scriptures. So maybe even add a tag in your scriptures that helps you kind of see the ways that Moses reacted to the word of the Lord as the Lord is guiding him here in his conversations with Pharaoh. So in verse 22 of chapter 9, the Lord gives Moses the command to do the thing.

And then here is Moses' reaction, I should say, in verse 23: And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground, and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. Now, this one, again, this could be replaced by several other verses in our readings, and I'll let you go through and find those. But did you notice Moses' reaction to the word of the Lord?

Moses did the thing. I think there's times in our life when we're experiencing pharaoh-like behaviors, right? Those times where we can't let go of the thing, and the Lord's like, let go.

And we're like, no. And the Lord's like, let go. And we're like, no.

And we learn the hard lessons and we experience the hard things in our lives. I do think that there's also times in our lives where we can be on the other side of that coin, where we are open and willing to listen to the Lord and his invitations. We've just recently, as of this recording, had General Conference where we've been counseled by leaders of the Lord.

We've been able to hear a living prophet speak the will of the Lord. Now is our opportunity to hear those things and be like Moses: Do the things that we've been encouraged to do. Do the things we've been asked to do.

I love Moses' example throughout this story because while he was full of questions and doubt on the front end of his calling, he seems to really kind of get into a stride here of sorts of confidence where he doesn't know what the end is, right? These things keep coming; the plagues keep coming. What he is able to do is focus on doing the will of the Lord and letting the results come down the line.

And so, my friends, may we all have a little bit of Moses in our lives as we experience those moments of Pharaohs in our lives as well. Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven. He did the thing the Lord commanded.

You and I will find great strength and success and positive results in our lives as we do the things the Lord commands us to do. That's all for today, my friends. You and I have come here for such a time as this.

Step forward in faith and let's be Savory Salt. We will be here tomorrow, and we hope you are too.