Today’s reading  Exodus 1-3; Matthew 15:21-39

Selected Verses

And God heard their groaning, and God remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac, and with Jacob. God saw the people of Israel—and God knew. Exodus 3:24-25

He healed them, so that the crowd wondered, when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled healthy, the lame walking, and the blind seeing. And they glorified the God of Israel. Matthew 15:30-31

Reflections

Exodus opens with an update on the descendants of Jacob (Israel) who by this time had remained in Egypt for 400 years. They no longer enjoyed favored status as they had in the days of Joseph. Their presence threatened the Egyptians who subjected them to slavery. The authorities insisted that the midwives execute all male babies. Things got worse and worse and the Israelites groaned. Did God know?

Indeed, He did. God heard, remembered, saw, and knew as the passage above points out. He had chosen Moses to deliver them. But first Moses needed to go through a strange training program. He was raised as a son of Pharaoh’s daughter. Then, he spiraled down. His first attempts at leadership ended in his committing murder. He fled to the wilderness with this question ringing in his ears, “Who made you a prince and judge over us?” Forty years passed. Finally, God appeared to a now-insecure eighty-year-old Moses. The Lord assured him that he would lead the Israelites out of slavery to the land of the Canaanites, a land that God had promised to Abraham. Israel would be free (Acts 7:30).

But that earthly kingdom of Israel would only be a shadow of the ultimate kingdom. Jesus came announcing the arrival of the kingdom of God. He set people free from the ravages, not of an earthly tyrant, but of the spiritual tyrant, Satan, through whom the world lived and lives in bondage to sin, sickness, and death. Jesus demonstrated His power as the king to liberate those who were bound. The eternal kingdom has already come in part, and we are promised that Jesus will come again to finalize its establishment. Meanwhile we pray, trust God, and wait confident that He knows our groaning, remembers His covenant, and will fulfill all His promises.

Think about it

Do you know that God knows your groaning today? He does. Trust Him. Deliverance is coming.

© 2017 John A Carroll Used by permission