A Year with God

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.

Holy Ground

GOD saw that he had stopped to look. God called to him from out of the bush, "Moses! Moses!"
He said, "Yes? I'm right here!"
God said, "Don't come any doser. Remove your sandals from your feet. You're standing on holy ground."
Then he said, "I am the God of your father. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob."
Moses hid his face, afraid to look at God.
GOD said, "I've taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt I've heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite.
"The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I've seen for myself how cruelly they're being treated by the Egyptians. It's time for you to go back I'm sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt" - Exodus 3:4-10 MSG

The people of Israel were in slavery because God had put them there. God sent Joseph to Egypt so that he could save his family's lives and the lives of the Egyptians. Then God sent Jacob and the rest of Joseph's brothers to Egypt to live with him. With Moses, the time had come at last to rescue the Israelites from a bondage that had not come through disobedience but through obedience to God's commands. God wanted the Egyptians to know about him. He wanted the Israelites to learn about God's power and to give them a picture of salvation.

God intended to take the land of the Canaanites and give it to the Israelites. The Canaanites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites all spoke a language similar to or in many cases the same as that of the Hebrews. The Hittites, however, spoke a language related to the languages of Europe and India. The people living in the promised land were disunited. Only their evil religion, a religion that included child sacrifice, bound them together. Israel would get their land because God needed to punish the Canaanites.

Sometimes doing what God wants might not be pleasant. We simply must trust that God knows what he is doing and that he is doing it for a very good reason.