Monday, December 14 2020 Devotional
"You have led in your steadfast love the people whom You have redeemed; You have guided them by Your strength to Your holy abode."
Exodus 15:13
This is part of the song that Moses sang right after the crossing of the Red Sea.
You remember the story: God parted the waters of the sea so that the people of Israel could escape; then when the Egyptian Army tried to follow them, He released the water so that the entire army was drowned.
This great miracle of deliverance resulted in much rejoicing, in singing and dancing among the Israelites. They had been delivered from the most powerful army in the world at that time.
Of course it had only been a few days since they had left Egypt. Before they would arrive in the Promised Land, they would wander for seventy years in the desert until every one of the adults who witnessed this great miracle of deliverance, including Moses himself, was dead. Yet Moses, inspired by the Holy Spirit, sang, “You have guided them by Your strength to Your holy abode.” Past tense: “You have done it.”
Moses sang prophetically, and spoke by faith. He knew that as the Lord had led them for these few days and delivered them from unimaginably powerful enemies, He would continue to guide them all the way to the Land He had promised them. Moses was as sure of this as he was of the miracle that he had just witnessed, even though it was in the future.
The Bible says, “These all died in faith, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.” (Hebrews 11:13)
We rejoice in the miracles we have seen so far in our lives and in the fact that God has delivered us and guided us up to this point. We know that He will bring us safely home to heaven, but we don’t know what the next seventy years hold.
It doesn’t matter. We see the destination and greet it from afar, by faith, and we know that “He who began the good work in [us] will bring it to completion in the day of Christ.”
I praise You, Lord, for delivering me so far and for the way You lead me day by day. By Your grace I trust I will make it the rest of the way. Keep me close, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Pastor Dan Giles