Moses – 3

Moses is minding his own business in the “back side of the desert”, Exodus 3:1, looking after his farther-in-laws sheep when he comes to the “mountain of God ”.

Here, this mountain is called Horeb which means Dry or Desolate, elsewhere in scripture it is referred to as Mount Sinai.

It is worth reading Stephen’s account of this story of “Moses and the burning bush” in Acts 7:30-26.

Moses sees the bush and realises that it is not being consumed so turns aside  to “see this sight why the bush is not being consumed (Exodus 3:3)”.

Exodus 3:4-6 is an important part of Moses’ calling. Moses had observed that the bush was burning but was not being consumed so he said to himself “I will now turn aside and see this great sight”. It is in ‘the turning aside to see’ that is the key to God speaking because it says in Exodus 3:4 “And when the Lord saw that he (Moses) turned aside He (God) called out”. There is a key principle and lesson here for us all in that if we aspire to be God’s mouthpiece, or even if we don’t, as in Moses’ case, then we need to have an attitude of heart and an enquiring mind and a willingness to “turn aside and see”. It is the combination of Heart, Mind and Body that demonstrates to God that what He is about to say will be received, albeit reluctantly by Moses, and I guess reluctantly by any one of us that is a true disciple of Jesus Christ because the ask of God will always cost, but the rewards are always great.

When God speaks in response to us turning to Him He always calls us by our name. In Exodus 3:4 God calls out “Moses, Moses” and the response from Moses is “Here I am”, in other words “I am listening Lord, I don’t know what you are going to ask of me, but I am listening”.

This has always to be our first response when God calls and speaks. All through our lives we need to cultivate this art of listening to avoid the danger of becoming arrogant and think that we can replace God and His word with our own thoughts and actions.

In Exodus 3:5 the first thing that God says in response to Moses’ “Here I am” is “don’t come any closer”, take off your shoes, the place you are standing on is HOLY GROUND.

Moses had demonstrated that he was willing to engage with God and God was now demonstrating that He was willing to engage with Moses.

We need to understand that when God speaks, and when we have responded, we are on God’s ground, and God is Holy, so the ground we are now standing on is HOLY GROUND and on HOLY GROUND there has to be nothing that gets in the way between God and Me so the shoes have to come off. Also this act of ‘taking one’s shoes off’ also demonstrates that the person, Moses in this case, was willing to become a servant, owning nothing and surrendering to God, albeit reluctantly as we will see later.

There would be many times in the future where Moses would be called into God’s presence, this initial act of obedience would serve him well in the future.

I wonder where we stand when God calls us from seemingly nowhere? Do we turn away and retreat or do we look at the bush and wonder why it is not being consumed and think Oh, just another bush it will succumb to the heat in time and get consumed, or do we look and turn aside and enquire about the deeper meaning as to why the bush is not being consumed?

Are we prepared to take off our shoes in recognition that this is God’s HOLY GROUND and then listen to the ask?

We will see what God has to say in our next blog.

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