Apr 4thDevotion Acts 7.1-51 Irrefutable Defense Part 10

Acts 7:1-51 / 20-22 – At that time Moses was born, and he was no ordinary child.  For three months he was cared for by his family.21 When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son. 22 Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action.

Have any parents ever looked upon their newly born child and thought this child is ordinary, or less than ordinary?  No matter the features or physical condition of the child born a child’s parents are immediately bestowed with great love for the child.  The child may have no limbs and that may cause the parents to hurt for the child and wonder how the child will fare in this world, but their love for the child is no less.  In fact, maybe even more, as they know the child will need the benefits of their love perhaps even more than an “ordinary” baby.  Isn’t this just as the Lord has done for us.  Adam and Eve were perfectly created, not born.  Yet, they traded the perfect image of God for a lie from the devil (Genesis 3).  He told them that they would be like God, but the exact opposite happened.  They did not become more like God, but instead became marred by the evil.  They were no longer an innocent perfect image of God, but were maimed by sin.  When a woman and a man lay with each other and a child is created they excitedly await their child.  Before the child is born, they love the baby in the womb of her mother.  Should the child be malformed, the parents love their child.  We know that God created two perfectly formed beings.  Once they had sinned His creation became malformed.  They became something that had been tragically disfigured and they were not ignorant of their disfiguration, but saw it in each other and their children until the day they died.  However, God never stopped loving His creation, instead His plan, which He had made before all of creation, began to unfold.  Never for an instant did God not love, instead He moved forward with His plan to love and rescue.  He, the first parent, loved His children.

Moses mother looked upon her son with the same love and pride as every mother thinking that He was the most beautiful baby ever.  Jochebed (Mother of Moses) knew her baby was absolutely stunning because her husband Amram was there to agree with her!  They were like all parents except, they were right.  Even scripture confirms that Moses was beautiful (Exodus 2:2).  Also every parent thinks their child “exceptional” and Jochebed thought the same of her Moses.  Again, scripture confirms that Moses was exceptional.

At the time of the birth of Moses a new Pharaoh ruled Egypt and did not regard the God the Jews served.  Yet God had prospered the Jews and their number had grown so fast that the Egyptians feared them.  In response to that fear the Egyptians made the Jews slaves and yet, no matter the depth of the oppression of them, the Lord continued to bless His people.  Pharaoh then made an edict that all male babies were to be killed.  He gave the order that every Jewish male child must be thrown into the Nile River to die. (Exodus 1:6-22).

Jochebed disobeyed the order to kill her son.  She kept Moses alive for three months.  However, eventually she did put Moses into the Nile River, however not as the Pharaoh had meant.  They made a little boat and put him into the river.  Moses sister watched over Moses in the water and the little boat with Moses within floated to the Pharaoh’s sister.  She found Moses and fell in love with this beautiful baby and decided to raise Him as her own.

It was not with a lack of faith that Moses was put into the Nile, but with faith.  His mother believed that God would keep her special child safe.  As she put Moses into the water was she thinking that God would not allow Moses to die just as He had protected Noah and his family in the flood waters?  Remembering Noah did her faith swell causing her to believe that God would not have her son die in the waters of the Nile.  With faith in God, Moses was cast afloat in the Nile.

Isn’t the beauty of God’s plan always so marvelously beautiful?  Since this was the Pharaoh’s sister, Moses would be raised with all the highest benefits and with the highest education of the Egyptian people.  God had His hand on Moses and protected and blessed Him.  God used the Egyptians to raise and educate the one whom God would use to lead His people to freedom from Egypt.

God used the Egyptians to raise up the one whom God would use to declare the plagues upon them and take their slaves from them.  God can and will use anyone He chooses to bring about His will, whether they know they are being used by God or not. God showed that He has the full ability to take care of His people.  Family, we should take great comfort and security in this story.  The love that God here shows over His people Israel, He also shows for us on a daily basis.  Never were the eyes of God off His people Israel and never are His eyes off of us.  So, if we feel like we have been abandoned and are dangerously floating down a dangerous river, let’s remember whom we love and serve.  Family, He first loved and served us and He always will.  May His will be done and may we always trust Him and praise His name.  God is so marvelously lovely and faithful beyond all that we could think and imagine.  Praise our God who loves us so!  Praise our God at all times!  Praise God!