“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.” (2 Cr. 4:16-18)

If there was ever a time in his life when Paul was ready to lose heart, it must have been when he was writing Second Corinthians. In the first chapter, we read of the interpersonal struggles he’d had in recent months. He dealt with rejection, with disappointment, with slander, and with persecution. How could he experience such things and yet continue with affirmations like the one quoted above? The answer is simple and is found in chapter one, verse nine: We “rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.”

Personally, I confess that I’ve been in a season of struggling with these same things: With seeing and experiencing the faults of others, and yet trying not to “lose heart” or give up faith in other people. Surely I’m not the only one who has prayed about the question: “God, how can I see things and people as they really are and yet not become jaded? How can I continue to believe that your ways work and that people can be good when I’m facing so much disappointment and discouragement?”

The challenge is to let life experience make us wiser but to never let it make us quit. It is to continue encouraging others, speaking the truth of the word, and living godly and upright in this present age. It is to rely on “the Father of mercies and God of all comfort” (2 Cr. 1:3). Trust God always; trust people sometimes.

“So we do not lose heart.”

- Dan Lankford, minister

“So Abraham called the name of that place, ‘The LORD will provide’; as it is said to this day, ‘On the mount of the LORD it shall be provided.’” (Gn. 22:14)

On that day, Abraham could well have said, “The LORD has already provided.” 

The narratives of Exodus 13-18 (the pillar of fire, the Red Sea, bitter water made sweet, the bread of heaven, water from the rock, and Jethro’s advice) show a pattern of life that holds true for all saints of all time. The path that Israel had to walk forewarns us that our faith will never remain untested, assures us that in the midst of troubles and trials which seem meaningless there are deep purposes of God at work, and calls us to the obedience of faith. The stories also illustrate the comforting truth of a God of providential care; foreseeing our needs, planning ahead for our welfare, and awaiting us with his solutions and sufficiency. In a word, the trials of the pathway may take us by surprise, but never him. They may catch us unprepared, but never him. Left to ourselves, they would be more than we could bear, but we are never left to ourselves. By ourselves, we would not know which way to turn, but we are not by ourselves. God has planned the course we are to take and walks with us. 

Particularly in the story of bitter water made sweet, where the solution was to cut down a tree and cast it into the water, we readily observe that the remedy had been in preparation long before the need arose. This ‘anticipatory providence’ on God’s part shows just how much he cared for them, and it reminds us with certainty that he cares for and provides for us too.

- adapted from Alec Motyer's commentary on Exodus, p. 176

An important phrase is peppered throughout all the narratives in the Exodus arc: “Moses did as the Lord had commanded him.” He spoke to Pharaoh like God told them to. He built the Tabernacle like God told him to. He set the Levites apart for service as God had told them to. We are told over a dozen times in the Torah that Moses simply, trustingly did what God said.

This demonstrates a powerful principle that God’s faithful ones talk about regularly, but which is often overlooked by the broad spectrum of all that calls itself Christian: respecting God’s authority.

Authority means the right to command. A person with authority is the person in charge; the one who can make decisions that affect others; the one whose words have the weight to make others obey. And in all of reality, no one has more authority than YHWH—the God of Abraham, of Isaac, of Jacob, and of our lord and savior Jesus.

Our job, then, is to obey the ways of God, plain and simple. In church life and in our personal lives, we are called to obey God’s spoken word—the Bible. Has he said how he wants his church led? Then we obey that. Has he said that his people should be generous with our money? Then we do it. Has he said to flee from sexual immorality? Then we do it. Has he said to worship him in certain ways and not in others? Then we do as he’s asked.

Our hope is that, as simple as it is, when the Holy Spirit looks at the whole of our lives, he will be able to say something similar of us to what he so often said of Moses: “They did just as the Lord had commanded them.”

- Dan Lankford, minister

Most Bible readers have heard often about the importance of context when reading and studying. For some believers, that means just a verse or a sentence before and after the specific thing we’re looking at. But often, the context of a particular passage includes a whole section of the book that it’s from.

That’s what we have with this week’s daily Bible readings. All week long, we’re following Israel’s journey from the Red Sea (which they crossed in ch. 14) to Mt. Sinai (where they’ll receive the Law, starting in ch. 20). I recently heard the Exodus simply outlined in three parts: the road out [of slavery], the road between [slavery and freedom], and the road up [to God’s promised rest]. We’re with them on ‘the road between’ right now.

As we said in this week’s Reader’s Guide, this is where Israel will begin to show their true colors… which aren’t pretty. They complain about God when they find places with no water (15:22-26, 17:1-7). And they disobey his simple instructions about manna, messing up in two ways: first, by trying to gather too much and hoard it for themselves (16:19-20), and second, by expecting to gather it on the day when he told them to rest (16:27-30). And if you know the rest of the wilderness story, then you know these events are only the beginning of their problems.

What was their core problem in these events? In all of those cases, they failed to trust that God would provide for them. They complained because they didn’t trust him to provide. They hoarded because they didn’t trust him to provide. They worked rather than rested because they didn’t trust him to provide.

Do we trust him to provide for us? What does our anxiety level reveal as the answer to that? What do our giving-versus-hoarding habits reveal as the answer to that? What do our work-versus-rest habits reveal as the answer to that? How are we doing at putting our full trust in our God while we live in this life—our very own ‘road between’ salvation and promised rest?

- Dan Lankford, minister