more like Moses

Radiate 2011 just ended at our church.  It seems that every year they hold a Revival/Conference in the spring.  They meet Sunday am, Sunday pm, Monday pm, Tuesday pm, and Wednesday pm.  Not sure about the past, but this year we had different speakers for each session, the theme was missions. 

Missions has been on my heart for several years now, and we have a couple young “planning-to-be” missionaries in our home. 

So as I am reading through Numbers these days, reading more about Moses and reflecting about what I have heard the last few days at Radiate, I think I feel my heart breaking.

I read about the Israelites – how they disobeyed, grumbled against, and stood up to God over and over.  God wanted to wipe them out more than once and do you know what stopped him? 

Moses 

One man

Sometimes Aaron too.  But for the most part it was Moses. 

Moses stood in the gap for those people over and over and over.  He is the reason God had mercy on them, that God spared them, that God forgave them over and over. 

And this morning, as my heart is already tender for my town, for the lost families that send their 4th graders into my care each Wednesday night, for those people I see on the road, in Brookshires, or who live nearby, my heart longs for me to be more like Moses.

When was the last time we ran into someone who was on their face before the Lord begging for mercy for the lost?  I have not been there.  I do not beg, plead, ask for mercy for the people in my town.  I occasionally pray for those far away, since for some reason we think about them more when we think about the lost.  But what about the people here?  The people who’s lives I touch without their knowing it?  Do I plead for them?  Do I inconvenience myself to touch their lives?  Do I love their kids enough in 90 minutes for them to go home and tell their folks about Jesus – who he is, and what they have learned about them? 
Or am I just doing a job?  Teaching?  Going through the motions?

Moses did a lot of things, but you know what?  He NEVER went through the motions.  That man loved those stubborn people as much as he loved himself, and at times maybe more!  He loved them.

Why?

Why do I not?

Do I take it all much more for granted than he did?  Do I fail to see how I could be one of those people wandering in the desert lost just like them, but if not for God’s grace in my life?  I must.  I must miss it.  I must take it for granted and somehow think I deserve this. 

I deserve to have running water and indoor plumbing.

I deserve to have enough food to throw some away sometimes.

I deserve to have nice things.

I deserve to not worry about the power bill being paid, or the water being turned off, or many other things.

But I deserve NOTHING!  It is all a gift from God.  It is nothing I have earned.  But I forget that.

There are good people who have nothing.  Good people homeless – why?  Because they deserver it? 

NO.

No.

no

So, today I want to be a tiny little bit more like Moses.  I want to become more like him each day.  I want to plead for the lives of the lost here in Malakoff.  I want to beg for the hearts of the families who live right here.  I want to change what the normal family looks like here where I live.  That is where it all starts.  Right here.  Right across my street.  Right around the corner.

That is my goal.  To let God break my heart for the people who are right here.  He has already started, months ago.  But the process is slow – well maybe I am slow!  Either way, I want to more like Moses.  A man who loved God with everything, loved his people almost as much, and who obeyed every step of the way.