Making Your Home a Haven Monday

I just wanted to share what I read this morning in my quiet time. Yesterday, our pastor preached from John 15:1-7 starting a series on intercession. His main point, as I took home, was that our prayer life is directly related to our intimacy with Christ. The closer we are to Christ the more we'll be like him in all things, in this case how He prayed and intercedes.

Each week, there are a series of Scriptures and questions to reflect on throughout the week. This morning I read Exodus 32:7-14.

Then the LORD spoke to Moses, "Go down at once, for your people, whom you brought up from the land of Egypt, have corrupted themselves.

"They have quickly turned aside from the way which I commanded them. They have made for themselves a molten calf, and have worshiped it and have sacrificed to it and said, 'This is your god, O Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt!'"

The LORD said to Moses, "I have seen this people, and behold, they are an obstinate people.

"Now then let Me alone, that My anger may burn against them and that I may destroy them; and I will make of you a great nation."

Then Moses entreated the LORD his God, and said, "O LORD, why does Your anger burn against Your people whom You have brought out from the land of Egypt with great power and with a mighty hand?

"Why should the Egyptians speak, saying, 'With evil intent He brought them out to kill them in the mountains and to destroy them from the face of the earth'? Turn from Your burning anger and change Your mind about doing harm to Your people.

"Remember Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, Your servants to whom You swore by Yourself, and said to them, 'I will multiply your descendants as the stars of the heavens, and all this land of which I have spoken I will give to your descendants, and they shall inherit it forever.'"

So the LORD changed His mind about the harm which He said He would do to His people.

There were two things that stood out to me about Moses relationship with God (in essence his prayer life, since talking with God is prayer). The first is how confident Moses is to request that God would change His mind. God's ready to destroy these people for all their evils and Moses comes up and says, "Please don't." The second thing is the evidence that he knows God and His heart. He reminds God of his promise to Abraham, Isaac, & Jacob to give them the land and make their descendants like the stars.

For me, what encouraged me most about this passage is the confident Moses had in approaching God and how Christ has given me that same confidence in approaching the throne of grace. It is a sweet truth.