Reconciled

DEVOTION

THE BOOK OF ACTS

RECONCILED

Acts 7:23-29

23 "When Moses was forty years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. 24 He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense and avenged him by killing the Egyptian. 25 Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not. 26 The next day Moses came upon two Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, 'Men, you are brothers; why do you want to hurt each other?' 27 "But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, 'Who made you ruler and judge over us? 28 Do you want to kill me as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?'   29 When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had two sons.

NIV

This is the beginning of the end of Stephens’s response to their question, but he is going to give a lot more details about Moses before he charges them with being stiff-necked. The reason he spends so much on Moses is because it was through him the law was given, the law which the members of the Sanhedrin have defiled. But what can we learn from this portion of the history of Moses? We have quickly moved through the first forty years of the life of Moses now we find him having thoughts of his heritage. We do not know what caused Moses to visit his fellow Israelites and by his somewhat surprise they were being mistreated, we could think for forty years he had never had any contact with them, did not know their situation, had no idea of what was going on outside his own blessed life. Yet it is somewhat puzzling that Moses thought his people would think God was using him to rescue them. Moses knew he was a Hebrew, he knew about God even though he was raised by Pharaoh’s daughter. It is also interesting his people did not see it the way Moses did, but rejected his being a rescuer. We also are seeing into the personality of Moses when he tries to break up an argument between two of the Israelites. He does not understand two brothers disagreeing to the point of argument, to the point of fighting. Moses surely thought that brothers, fellow Israelites, especially experiencing the same kind of mistreatment from Egyptians would bond, or band together, be united instead of fighting among themselves. That could be our life lesson as individuals and as a church. It is fairly obvious the world has a certain amount of trouble with true Christians. Some would kill Christians if they do not covert to their faith. Others would endeavor to protest against Christians, trying to pass laws to dismantle our public expression of our faith. It would seem we Christians should band together, bond, and unite, but it seems we are not much different than those Israelites fighting. We disagree with each other and in some sense we fight with each other, both as individuals and as a church. If we hold harsh feelings about another believer it is a form of fighting. If we harbor unforgiveness we are fighting. If we seek retaliation in any form we are fighting. In essence, whenever we demand our own way, it is a form of fighting. This holds true as individuals, but also in churches. We argue with each other over the interpretation of the Word and divide ourselves by denominational labels. But even within the same church we argue about how the church should act, should look like, what kind of music we use in worship, the color of the carpet, the walls, or whatever. It still boils down to each of us demanding our own way. This is the main cause of all disagreements, all fighting. Somehow it is within our human nature to want our own way. Moses did not think that should be right and he tried to reconcile them, but they would not have it. We should think that when God reconciled himself to us, we would all simply accept it and be bonded as brothers, but it appears we may not be having any part of that either. We certainly need to see and live a life of reconciliation.