No Ordinary Child

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

NO ORDINARY CHILD

Acts 7:17-22

17 "As the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. 18 Then another king, who knew nothing about Joseph, became ruler of Egypt. 19 He dealt treacherously with our people and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die. 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. 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.

NIV

It is not uncommon for people to deal treacherously with those who threaten them. We know from the recorded history in the Old Testament all the ways in which this Pharaoh treated the children of Israel. Stephen has left a lot of it out, but then they all already knew all this history and he is still about making the point of accusing them. Yet we can learn something from what he has shared here. It is not so much about being treated badly by people who are threatened by our faith, although that might also be the case. Of course this would require someone to be threatened by our faith. If we are living in basically the same manner as unbelievers, except that we include God in our lives, there is no reason for them to be threatened. But if we are living a different kind of life, one full of faith and full of the Holy Spirit, having the divine influence on our hearts and having that reflected in our lives, as well as having the power of God evident in us, then maybe some people might be threatened by us.  Yet it is about the education of Moses which gives us some insight into a lesson for our lives. If we examine the whole of the life of Moses which we know, we find we can divide his life into three periods of forty years. The last forty are the years he was used mightily of God. When Moses was born he was no ordinary child, which is an understatement. However he did spend his first forty years learning all the skills he would need to be the leader of the children of Israel. He was educated in all the human knowledge available at the time, but that did not complete his training in order to be what God needed him to be so as to deliver the children of Israel out of the hands of this evil king. We can attend the greatest institutions of higher learning, both in the secular and/or the biblical realm, but that may not qualify us for the task God has for us to accomplish. Although Moses had some sort of identification with the Hebrews and acted impulsively, he was not the man God intended him to be yet. God had to get Moses alone and spend forty more years developing him spiritually. God made sure Moses was away from all the distractions of higher education, advanced technology, the finer pleasures wealth can afford in order for Moses to grow spiritually into the man God could use for his purpose. We too must be able to remove ourselves in some sense from all those things of the world which are of great distractions to our spiritual growth. Although we cannot run away into the wilderness as Moses did, we can and must, at least mentally remove ourselves from all those distractions in order to allow God to speak to our hearts. We need that period of alone time with God. It was not until Moses had developed spiritually did God call him from the burning bush for his purpose. Our lives are not actually our own. We might gain a whole lot of education, both secular and biblical, but we need to grow spiritually so that God can use us for his purpose. He is not our genie in the bottle to simply meet all our needs, although he certainly does that, but he is God and he has a plan and a purpose for our lives. He has knit us together in our mother’s womb, and as Moses was, we are no ordinary children, for we are children of the most high God. We were born for a purpose and we were reborn for that purpose, to accomplish the plan of God. We may not get to that plan until the last third of our lives, as did Moses, but we can be sure God does have a plan and he desires us to be ready to do that which he has or will call us to do. We need to remember we are no ordinary child.