Week 23: Day 3

Intro: Hello, my name is Damilola, welcome to today's Orbit devotional.

Bible: I'm going to be reading from Exodus chapter three, verse 11, to 15.

But Moses said to God, ‘Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?’

And God said, ‘I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.’

Moses said to God, ‘Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, “The God of your fathers has sent me to you,” and they ask me, “What is his name?” Then what shall I tell them?’

God said to Moses, ‘I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: “I am has sent me to you.”’

God also said to Moses, ‘Say to the Israelites, “The Lord, the God of your fathers – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob – has sent me to you.”

‘This is my name for ever, the name you shall call me from generation to generation.

Thoughts: I wonder what makes you feel insecure. For me, the list is reasonably long, there can be a number of different moments when I feel, do you know what I'm just not good enough, I'm not able to do this thing that I'm meant to do. There’s so many people who are better than me at doing this. Yes, I've got skills and gifts that God's given me, we all do. And yet those moments when those things just don't seem good enough to me.

And one way of dealing with insecurity of feeling less than in ourselves is to give ourselves really good pep talks. And sometimes the people that love us around us might do this, they might say, You know what, you're great. And you can go ahead and you can do it. And everything you need is found inside yourself. And some of that is true and helpful. There are things that we are good at that we should recognise. But I think today's passage shows us a better way than just psyching ourselves up or believing our own hype to make it through our insecurities.

Sometimes, we don't have it in ourselves. Sometimes, our skills and gifts just aren't good enough. But that's not bad news. It's good news. And this is why God gives Moses this big, really big task to do to set his people free. And there's a sense in which he's already given Moses some skills and gifts to do this. He's given him a heart and passion for justice. But at the same time, this is way above Moses’ paygrade. And yet, the key sentence in the midst of all of this, is when God tells him, I will be with you. That's the game changer. And Moses life in this story, and it's the same for you and I, when there are things ahead of us that seem too big for us. We don't need to imagine ourselves as really big or pretend that we're really big. We need to look up and remember that our God is bigger than anything that stands in our way. God tells Moses, you don't have it all together. But that doesn't matter because I am with you. And as Moses keeps on and saying how insecure he feels God reminds him, not of how he's meant to feel or what he should feel like, God tells him, this is who I am. This is what you can have confidence in.

Where is God inviting you and I to have confidence in him, where we lack confidence in ourselves. That is a much better foundation for our lives and for this day than anything else. So let's ask God's help, and living in that truth today.

Prayer: Lord, thank you for this amazing truth. That when we lack the resources that we need, and ourselves when we feel small, and ourselves and that's fill our minds we can turn to you. And thank you, Lord, that you're not insecure that you don't have any weaknesses, but that you don't turn us away and our weaknesses. God you invite us to come to you to draw strength from you. But I pray that you'd help me today you'd help us today not to have confidence in our own selves apart from you, but that you would help us to understand our strength is coming from you, and to rejoice in that, but we don't have to have it all together, because you are the God who holds the world and us in your hands, or we have joy in knowing that today. In Jesus name, amen.

Challenge: And my challenge for you today is to hear these words from John chapter 15, verse four, and to read them again and again, say them again and again until they are locked in your mind. And this is what John 15:4 says, this is Jesus speaking to His disciples and to you and I, he says, Stay joined to me, and I will stay joined to you. A branch that is cut off from the vine cannot produce fruit. But if you stay joined to me, you will produce much fruit. So, find that verse, whatever Bible passage, you have, find that verse, read it over and over again and commit it to memory so that you and I can remember all the times. Yes, we can't do everything by ourselves. But all we need to do stay close to Jesus, and he'll take care of the rest.

Outro: Thanks so much for listening. Have a great day. Goodbye.