Moses

I am pondering a sermon series on the life of Moses. The thought was prompted by Stephen's sermon in Acts 7. In particular this portion grabbed my attention recently:
20"At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child. For three months he was cared for in his father’s house. 21When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action." Now compare the last phrase with Moses' own description of himself some forty years later.

In Exodus 4:10 Moses says, "Moses said to the LORD, "O Lord, I have never been eloquent, neither in the past nor since you have spoken to your servant. I am slow of speech and tongue." Now we know that Stephen was speaking under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. What caused Moses to lose all his confidence? The Moses we meet at the burning bush shows very little similarity with the Moses Stephen preaches about. What a contrast! But God knew that He had created Moses and had orchestrated Moses' life. Moses was no ordinary child. He would become a prophet, a leader, an intercessor, a miracle worker and a man who would talk with God.

I will maybe share more as I develop these thoughts. I had read Acts many many times but this time this verse really stuck out at me. God still speaks through His Word!

Here we go again!

This will be my first post of the new year. I have many reasons I haven't posted. The last week and a half I have been sick. I finally broke down and went to the doctor yesterday. It was the first time in over eight years I have made a trip. Actually I didn't see s doctor but some kind of hybrid health care professional or Dr's assistant? I have a sinus infection as well as some kind of bronchial infection. Antibiotics have been proscribed. It cost me $50 for the pills but I think I am on the mend. I am finally thinking productive thoughts again!

I read this on another blog: http://blog.theaterchurch.com/ For what it's worth, Ed has someone screen his mail and email. And he doesn't read unsigned letters :) We need constructive criticism, but that ought to come from the people who are closest to us! If you listen to the "wrong they" you become like them.

I think that is a great insight. I have determined not to accept unsigned criticism any more. I have gotten a lot of it. It is always filtered through my church council members. If there is a complaint usually it comes from someone going to a council member. "They" say a lot of things. I am going to tell the council in our next meeting that unless they are willing to lend a name to the complaint I don't care to hear about it. Usually the biggest complainers are the people who do the least anyway.

Here's an example. We have been trying to decide what to do about Sunday evenings. We will be having Life groups twice a month. What to do with the other two weeks? When we started talking about canceling the biggest complainers were those who came the least often or not at all on Sunday nights. So consider the source. Not all criticism should be taken as having equal value.